Legal Scholars Are Shocked By Ginni Thomas’s “Stop the Steal” Texts - Several experts say that Thomas’s husband, the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, must recuse himself from any case related to the 2020 election. - link
The Day Foreign Journalists Felt Forced to Leave Moscow - After a meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry, dozens of outlets moved their reporters out of the country. - link
The Biden Official Who Pierced Putin’s “Sanction-Proof” Economy - In the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Daleep Singh, a national-security adviser, searched for areas where “our strengths intersect with Russian vulnerability.” - link
“Squirrels to the Nuts,” Reviewed: The Director’s Cut of Peter Bogdanovich’s Last Feature - This edit vastly improves on the original, but it also reveals the limitations of the filmmaker’s style. - link
Why I Chose to Stay in Ukraine - I’m an American writer who moved to a small Ukrainian city four years ago. Today, it is flooded with refugees and astonishing solidarity. - link
From Vox
The Republican Party is still fractured on criminal justice reform -
Sens. Lindsey Graham, right, and Tom Cotton conduct a news conference at the US Capitol in July 2020. | Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court hearing underscored these divides.
“The Biden administration is committed to these soft-on-crime policies,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). “Liberal judges who have more sympathy for the victimizers than for the victims are a big part of the problem.”
“[The best way to deter people viewing child porn] is to put their ass in jail,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as he criticized Jackson’s sentencing decisions in such cases.
Throughout the hearing — and increasingly everywhere else in recent months — many have embraced a “tough on crime” stance. That comes in response to an uptick in violent crime during the pandemic and corresponding voter concerns about it.
“Under one-party Democrat rule in Washington, American families are facing … a crime crisis,” House Republicans posted in a March tweet. “Crime is surging across the country,” Senate Republicans emphasized in February. “The results of Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies are clear.”
The rhetoric in Jackson’s hearing and in broader GOP messaging have seemed like a departure from the focus on criminal justice reform that the party had as recently as 2018, when the majority of Senate Republicans backed sentencing changes for nonviolent offenders in the First Step Act. The party back then was eager to show it had made progress on an issue that arose from Congress’s efforts to crack down on crime decades ago. (Many of these efforts notably excluded violent offenders or sex offenders that Jackson was spuriously accused of going easy on.)
There are some Republicans who are reluctant to evangelize criminal justice reforms now, advocates say, since increases in crime have become a GOP talking point. According to a study from the Council on Criminal Justice, the homicide rate across 22 major cities was up 5 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, and up 44 percent compared to 2019.
“I think your average conservative, or average Republican, may have supported the First Step Act, but I have the impression that the average conservative has backed off from where they were,” says Clark Neily, a senior vice president of legal studies at the Cato Institute.
Experts emphasize, however, that the most aggressive moments in the hearing are not indicative of how open a segment of Republicans still is to important but limited criminal justice reforms.
Just last week, 10 Republicans signed on to cosponsor the Equal Act, legislation that would reduce the sentencing disparities between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The legislation — which would make penalties the same for the two substances — has yet to be considered on the floor but could pass with the GOP support it has. Currently, sentencing standards are far more severe for crack cocaine, a disparity that disproportionately affects Black offenders.
“The fact of the matter is that all who work in DC politics understand that congressional hearings basically exist for political grandstanding, and that’s pretty much it,” says Jason Pye, a director at the criminal justice reform group Due Process, who lobbied Republicans on the First Step Act. “There are plenty of Republicans in the Senate who will vote for bills like this because they think it’s the right thing to do.”
There’s a Republican split on reforms
The rhetoric at Jackson’s hearing revealed divides within the party on the issue and the subjects that Republicans aren’t interested in addressing via reforms.
For years, the party has been fractured on the subject with senators like Tom Cotton (R-AR) opposed to virtually any reforms, while others like Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tim Scott (R-SC) have led efforts for sentencing reforms for nonviolent drug offenses and police reforms.
“There are upwards of 20 Republicans who are gettable, but there are going to be the ones who always oppose you. You start with the list of the no votes on these bills,” says Pye.
These differences were on full display at the hearing, with Cotton, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) among the most vocal critics of Jackson’s sentencing record on child porn cases. (While Cruz voted for the First Step Act, it took key tweaks for him to ultimately do so.)
And even among those supportive of reforms, like Lee and Graham, a focus on child porn cases echoed where they’ve stood on violent crimes and sex crimes related to children. Even though they back sentencing changes for nonviolent drug offenders, they take a very different approach to violent crimes.
“Even in the First Step Act, you had a lot of carveouts,” says Brett Tolman, the head of the conservative advocacy group Right on Crime.“They spent a lot of time carving out crimes of violence, of child porn.”
Reforms on drug sentencing that Republicans do back didn’t come up as much, since they didn’t relate to the chief line of attack from committee members on Jackson’s sentencing. Notably, though, a sizable group of Republicans continues to support them. Those cosponsoring the Equal Act, for example, include Sens. Paul, Rob Portman (R-OH), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Richard Burr (R-NC).
Republicans have been less vocal about reforms in general given the attention on crime rates, says Tolman. At the state and local level, many Republican officials have also pushed back on progressive prosecutors, policies like changes to cash bail, and reduced prosecutions for low-level offenses.
“I think they’re often scared that if … crime continues to increase, no one wants the blame placed on them,” says Jillian Snider, the policy director for the criminal justice and civil liberties team at R Street Institute.
There’s also the Trump factor. During his presidency, Trump’s support of the First Step Act helped to get Republicans who were on the fence on board. Without his advocacy on the issue now, some lawmakers are likely less open to this idea.
“It’s certainly true that President Trump, when he was in office and told McConnell to put it on the floor, that helped us out, and got us votes we otherwise wouldn’t have had,” says Pye.
There’s still interest in (some) bipartisan criminal justice reform
Recent progress on criminal justice reform indicates that there’s still bipartisan interest in narrower policies.
Republicans’ backing for the Equal Act — a pretty limited bill — is still significant. It’s not yet clear if the legislation will move forward in the Senate, though it now has sufficient Republican support.
In the past, Republicans have similarly been open to very targeted policies.
The First Step Act, for example, enables just a subset of federal inmates to shorten their sentences. Other more ambitious reforms, meanwhile, have floundered.
Previous discussions on police reform collapsed because Democrats were pushing for a more expansive bill that eliminated qualified immunity, legal protections that police have that shield them from liability. Republicans, meanwhile, were not interested in removing these protections.
The Next Step Act, legislation sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) to reduce mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenses and provide more police training, has failed to get any traction, either.
Republicans’ openness to the Equal Act signals that there’s enduring bipartisan potential for reforms, even though the party’s overall rhetoric doesn’t always reflect this support.
Yes, Merrick Garland can prosecute Mark Meadows (and Peter Navarro, and Dan Scavino) -
Former Trump trade policy adviser Peter Navarro listens as former President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on March 29, 2020. | Pete Marovich/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images
He should, too.
The US House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the Trump White House’s role in it is charging ahead. But — thanks in part to the limited power of congressional inquiries — the success of their next steps depends on the Justice Department.
And at least right now, the committee appears to be losing faith in that department, and specifically in Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has thus far been reluctant to prosecute high-ranking Trump administration officials who’ve stonewalled the committee. Several members of the committee criticized Garland for failing to prosecute at least one former top Trump aide whom Congress voted to hold in contempt. In the words of Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), “Attorney General Garland, do your job so we can do ours.”
The committee alsovoted unanimously on Monday to hold two former Trump White House aides in contempt of Congress. The former aides, trade adviser Peter Navarro and social media director Dan Scavino, both refused to comply with a subpoena seeking documents and testimony.
In the likely event that the full House agrees that the two men should be held in contempt, both could be fined and face up to a year of incarceration — though the decision whether to prosecute the two former White House aides will be made by the Justice Department and not by Congress.
Based on what we already know about how the Justice Department has handled other referrals, it’s unclear whether it will decide to act.
Last November, the Justice Department indicted Stephen Bannon, another former top Trump aide, because Bannon also refused to comply with a subpoena from the January 6 committee. About a month later, Congress voted to hold former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt, but Meadows has not yet been indicted.
If DOJ does eventually prosecute Meadows, Navarro, and Scavino, their cases could potentially raise distinct legal issues because all three were still White House employees and members of Trump’s inner circle during the January 6 attack, while Bannon was a private citizen.
Indeed, Navarro is openly hoping that his status as a former consigliere to a sitting president will rescue him from contempt charges. The subpoena, he misleadingly claimed, is “predicated on the ridiculous legal premise that Joe Biden can waive Donald Trump’s Executive Privilege,” before predicting that “the Supreme Court will say otherwise when the time comes.”
There are several reasons to doubt that Navarro’s prediction will prove accurate. While the GOP-controlled Supreme Court was quite protective of Trump while the former president was in office, effectively thwarting a House-led investigation that sought his financial records until after Trump left office, the Court broke with Trump in a January 6-related case after he left office.
That case, Trump v. Thompson, permitted the January 6 committee to obtain hundreds of pages of Trump White House records that were held by the National Archives.
Navarro is also wrong that President Biden’s views are irrelevant to whether Navarro can hide behind executive privilege. Though the Supreme Court held in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services (GSA) (1977) that this privilege “survives the individual President’s tenure,” the GSA case also held that a former president’s power to keep their staff’s deliberations secret is much less potent than a sitting president’s power to do so. And it is especially weak when the sitting president believes that a former administration’s deliberations should not remain secret.
So, while Biden doesn’t have the authority to completely override Trump’s assertions of executive privilege, courts typically afford considerable deference to a sitting president’s determination that a past president should not be allowed to claim the privilege.
On top of these two problems for Navarro, it’s far from clear that Navarro’s actions are even covered by the executive privilege. Though communications between a president and their top aides are often privileged, according to a federal appeals court, that privilege only applies to communications concerning “official government matters.” Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election fall outside of a president’s official duties.
So it is likely, if not entirely certain, that if the Justice Department decided to prosecute Meadows, Navarro, and Scavino, the courts would not bail out these three former officials.
The biggest obstacle facing prosecutors would most likely be the potential for jury nullification — a jury that includes staunch Trump supporters may refuse to convict, potentially hanging the jury, no matter how strong the evidence against former Trump aides. Perhaps that explains Garland’s caution, because case law strongly supports allowing such a prosecution to move forward.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, left, and social media director Dan Scavino, on the South Lawn of the White House on September 22, 2020.
The Supreme Court does have a Republican majority that could still bend the law to thwart an investigation into the former GOP president. But the Thompson case suggests that even this Supreme Court may be reluctant to do so.
Executive privilege, briefly explained
Executive privilege permits presidents — both sitting and former — to keep certain communications among their subordinates confidential. As the Court explained in United States v. Nixon (1974), the privilege exists to ensure that presidents receive candid advice. “Those who expect public dissemination of their remarks,” the 1974 Nixon case explained, “may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decisionmaking process.”
But Nixon also held that the privilege is neither “absolute” nor “unqualified.” In that case, the Supreme Court ordered then-sitting President Richard Nixon to turn over tape recordings that incriminated him and eventually led to his resignation. “Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets,” the Nixon case held, the justice system’s need to conduct a full investigation into the Watergate scandal, and to prosecute any crimes committed during the course of that scandal, overcame the presidency’s interest in keeping Nixon’s communications secret.
A few years later, in the GSA case, the Court added that executive privilege “is not for the benefit of the President as an individual, but for the benefit of the Republic.” Thus, if a president seeks to keep secret their own efforts to harm the republic, the privilege should not apply.
GSA also explains how courts should treat executive privilege claims by a former president. The current president, the Court reasoned in GSA, is the best caretaker of the presidency’s institutional interests. And “it must be presumed that the incumbent President is vitally concerned with and in the best position to assess the present and future needs of the Executive Branch, and to support invocation of the privilege accordingly.”
Earlier this year, President Biden determined that “an assertion of executive privilege is not in the national interest, and therefore is not justified, with respect to particular subjects within the purview of the Select Committee” investigating the January 6 attack. So, even if Trump attempts to rescue Navarro and Scavino by asserting executive privilege, his ability to do so is weakened significantly because he is at odds with the sitting president.
The judiciary’s leading authority on Trump’s ability to resist subpoenas may be Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
As noted above, the Supreme Court effectively prevented House investigators — and the voters more broadly — from learning about Trump’s personal finances in Trump v. Mazars (2020). After Trump left office, however, the Court appeared to reverse course and allow House investigations into Trump to proceed in the Thompson case.
By sheer coincidence — appellate judges are typically randomly assigned to cases — one of the lower court judges who ruled against Trump in Thompson was Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson also ruled in an earlier case, Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn, that top presidential aides are not immune from congressional subpoenas. Both decisions offer some insight into how the courts might approach a prosecution of Navarro and Scavino.
Judge Jackson’s decision in McGahn, which was handed down while she was still a federal trial judge, was fairly measured. Although she rejected the Trump administration’s claim that “a President’s senior-level aides have absolute testimonial immunity” from a congressional subpoena, she also determined that executive privilege might allow them to refuse to answer certain questions.
Under Jackson’s approach, which is the same approach taken by the January 6 committee, a top presidential aide subpoenaed by Congress must physically show up to testify. But “the specific information that high-level presidential aides may be asked to provide in the context of such questioning can be withheld from the committee on the basis of a valid privilege.” (The correctness of Jackson’s McGahn opinion was never fully resolved on appeal, in part because of competing appeals court decisions, and in part because McGahn agreed to voluntarily testify after Trump left office.)
So, if Navarro and Scavino had complied with the subpoena, it is possible that some of the information sought by the committee might be protected by executive privilege. But, at least under Jackson’s approach, they cannot simply refuse to show up — and can be held in contempt of Congress for their refusal.
In Thompson, meanwhile, the Supreme Court handed down a brief, one-paragraph order that offers only limited insight into why the Court ruled against Trump. But the justices’ brief order in Thompson seemed to credit the lower appeals court’s decision — the decision that was joined by Judge Jackson — which determined that “President Trump’s claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent.”
Among other things, the appeals court ruled that Congress has a “uniquely weighty interest in investigating the causes and circumstances of the January 6th attack so that it can adopt measures to better protect the Capitol Complex, prevent similar harm in the future, and ensure the peaceful transfer of power.” The House, that court explained, “is investigating the single most deadly attack on the Capitol by domestic forces in the history of the United States.”
Thus, the country’s overriding interest in fully understanding how this attack happened is strong enough to overcome even a sitting president’s claim of executive privilege.
So, while it remains to be seen whether Navarro and Scavino will be indicted, and while it is always possible that the Supreme Court’s Republican majority will intervene on their behalf, such an outcome seems unlikely. The Court broke with Trump on the January 6 attack in Thompson, and the same factors that guided the Court’s decision in Thompson should also control any claim by Navarro and Scavino that they cannot be prosecuted due to executive privilege.
The January 6 committee is seemingly moving toward recommending charges for Trump -
President Donald Trump greets the crowd at the “Stop The Steal” rally on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. His supporters would proceed to storm the Capitol building. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
A federal judge agreed Trump likely committed crimes. Will Merrick Garland?
The House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack seems to be building toward a conclusion that former President Donald Trump broke the law, and developments in recent days have intensified questions about his potential criminal exposure.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that White House records of Trump’s calls on the day of the attack, which had been turned over to the January 6 committee, had a gap of seven hours and 37 minutes in which no calls were listed. Speculation abounded from investigators and commentators that Trump used unofficial “burner phones” on that day to avoid leaving a paper trail with the federal government records. (Trump denied knowing what a burner phone is.)
Meanwhile, earlier in the week, a federal judgetook stock of the January 6 committee’s argument that Trump had committed crimes connected to that day’s events — and found them persuasive. As part of a ruling in a civil lawsuit over whether Trump’s lawyer had to turn over some records to the committee, the judge wrote that Trump “more likely than not” committed both obstruction and conspiracy as he tried to impede Congress’s count of the electoral votes, and harshly condemned his actions. This is just one judge’s opinion, but it was a vote of confidence in the case the committee seems to be building.
The committee has been at work since last July. Its chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), has said his goal is to release an interim report on its findings in June. A final report would perhaps follow at the end of the year. (If Republicans retake control of the House of Representatives in the midterms as expected, they will likely disband the committee when they take power in January.) The committee is investigating whether Trump broke the law, and they appear likely to conclude that he did.
But in the end, any decision about whether to charge Trump here will be made by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department. And it’s unclear whether Garland and his aides will be persuaded by this legal reasoning.
Trump’s records gap and possible “burner phones”
The most recent development is that on Tuesday, the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reported that White House records from January 6 turned over to the committee have a seven-hour, 37-minute gap in the middle of that day, in which no calls President Trump made or received are listed.
The existence of a gap in Trump’s official phone records that day had been reported back in February, but the Post obtained the records themselves and specified the exact length of that gap, which is … very long indeed, encompassing the initial attack itself and lasting until 6:54 pm Eastern. (Police declared the Capitol secure at 8 pm.)
Given that there are multiplereports about Trump making or receiving calls during this time span, it seems obvious the official records are incomplete. Trump may have used his aides’ phones to speak to others. But Woodward and Costa also report that the committee is investigating whether Trump deliberately used cheap “burner phones” that could be used temporarily and then disposed of, therefore avoiding an easily documentable paper trail.
Trump responded with a statement claiming he had “no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term.”
But former national security adviser John Bolton told Costa he had heard Trump use the term “burner phones” several times and that Trump fully understood what they were used for. And Hunter Walker wrote for Rolling Stone back in November that some organizers of the pro-Trump rally in Washington, DC, on January 6 had obtained burner phones to contact Trump’s team and even members of the Trump family.
Obviously, this gap makes it much more difficult for the January 6 committee to document Trump’s behavior in the key hours during the attack. And it certainly raises questions about why Trump was seemingly so keen to avoid leaving a paper trail. What the committee will do next isn’t clear, but one of its members told the Post they are investigating a possible “coverup.”
A federal judge opined that Trump “more likely than not” committed crimes
Meanwhile, on Monday, a federal district court judge — David Carter, of the Central District of California — issued a rather remarkable order making clear he believed Trump had likely committed crimes.
The ruling came down in a lawsuit over whether Trump’s lawyer, John Eastman, had to turn over certain emails to the January 6 committee. Eastman claimed they were subject to attorney-client privilege, but the committee argued that privilege didn’t apply here, in part because of the “crime-fraud exception.” (Basically, if an attorney is advising the client in how to commit a crime or fraud, their communications don’t get shielded by privilege.)
So this was really the committee’s first big attempt to argue that Trump committed crimes in connection with his effort to overturn the election — and Judge Carter found their arguments persuasive.
The committee had argued that they believed Trump had committed three crimes. First was obstruction of an official proceeding (Congress’s count of the electoral votes on January 6). Second was conspiracy (basically, working with other people to obstruct the proceeding). Third was simple common law fraud (related to his false claims that the election was stolen from him).
Carter didn’t assess the common law fraud question because it wasn’t relevant to the emails in front of him, but he concluded it was “more likely than not” that Trump committed obstruction and conspiracy related to the January 6 vote count.
And he used strong words indeed. Saying Trump and his allies launched “a coup in search of a legal theory” that “spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government,” Carter wrote that if Trump’s “plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power.”
But what does it amount to? The concrete result of this crime-fraud exception finding is that Carter ordered Eastman to turn over one single additional email chain to the committee. This email chain contains a draft memo discussing the plan to have Vice President Mike Pence refuse to count electoral votes from certain states. It is unlikely to be the sort of bombshell that will blow the case wide open, since we have seen similar documents before.
So the significance of the ruling is merely that a federal judge agreed that Trump himself likely committed crimes — but that’s also its limitation. It is just one judge’s opinion. The real decision-makers for whether Trump will be charged lie elsewhere.
Ultimately, the committee doesn’t get to indict Trump
The January 6 committee has signaled that its endgame may be to recommend criminal charges against Trump — issuing a report documenting evidence for charging him with obstruction and conspiracy, and making a legal argument for why he should be charged.
But, like Judge Carter, the committee can only offer their own opinion. The people who will make the call on whether to charge Trump are the prosecutors and leadership of the US Justice Department. And it’s not at all clear whether they are sufficiently persuaded by these arguments to take that enormously consequential, sure-to- be-controversial action.
Prosecutors have charged more than 700 people with crimes related to the January 6 attack. These charges have focused on people who actually broke into the Capitol building or who conspired to have others do so. No aides to Trump, current or former, have been charged for their actions that day.
Trump called on his supporters to come to Washington on January 6 (he tweeted “Be there, will be wild!” in December), and when he spoke at the rally he encouraged them to march to the Capitol and suggested he’d join them (but ultimately didn’t). He clearly wanted his supporters to make a big disruption, and he and Giuliani were pitching various procedural gambits his congressional allies could use to delay the vote count.
But did he envision that the mob would physically break into the building, before it happened? There’s no real evidence of that so far. That means any prosecution of Trump would likely be less about the actual break-in at the Capitol and more about his efforts to overturn the election outcome through political pressure.
Judge Carter and the January 6 committee leaders argue that Trump’s political pressures on Pence and others did amount to lawbreaking. The question is whether Attorney General Merrick Garland and other top Justice Department leaders agree. And as of yet, they haven’t gone there, or anywhere particularly close.
From The Hindu: Sports
ICC Women’s World Cup | England thrashes South Africa by 137 runs, sets up final against Australia - Australia beat the West Indies by 157 runs in the first of the semifinals Wednesday.
IPL 2022 | Dinesh Karthik is as cool as MS Dhoni, says Faf du Plessis - RCB batters had to overcome some anxious moments as they huffed and puffed to a three-wicket win against KKR
Premier League returns as Manchester City and Liverpool’s Premier League mount final title charge - With the final international break of the season over and only 9 games left in the Premier League, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City are looking to defend their title, but Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool are only a point behind
Indian Premier League 2022 | Fit-again Suryakumar Yadav joins Mumbai Indians ahead Rajasthan fixture - Suryakumar, who was undergoing rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy missed the opening encounter against Delhi.
Indian Premier League 2022: KKR vs PBKS | Kolkata promises bold play against power-packed Punjab - Batting at the Wankhede, where the track is relatively fresh, has not been easy as seen in the two games played at the venue so far.
From The Hindu: National News
BJP withdraws support to NC-led Kargil hill council - But the NC sounds confident that it has the numbers to complete the term
Prices of electric vehicles to be equal of petrol cars in 2 years, says Nitin Gadkari - Minister Nitin. Gadkari also said MPs can buy electric vehicles once a charging station is installed in Parliament premises
NHA releases consultation paper on drug registry - The registry will be a single, up-to-date, centralised repository of all drugs across all systems of medicine
No need of CBI probe in Dileep conspiracy case, says Kerala govt. - HC asks prosecution if probe officers have any special interest in case
Uddhav Thackeray lifts all COVID-19 restrictions in Maharashtra from April 2 - “We urge citizens to voluntarily follow measures such as use of mask and physical distancing,” says Mr. Thackeray
From BBC: Europe
Ukraine war: Ukraine sends buses to Mariupol for rescue effort - A convoy of 45 buses is heading for the besieged city in the latest attempt to rescue trapped civilians.
Ukraine war: Mariupol’s refugees carry wounds of battered city - Residents who have escaped the besieged city are trying to leave behind memories of its destruction.
French intelligence chief Vidaud fired over Russian war failings - Gen Eric Vidaud loses his job as military intelligence boss for not predicting Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine war: Putin being misled by fearful advisers, US says - News on Russia’s poor military performance is not making it back to Putin, the White House says.
Germany and Austria take step towards gas rationing - Germany and Austria have both issued gas supply warnings as a payments row with Russia escalates.
From Ars Technica
Pfizer, Moderna vaccines aren’t the same; study finds antibody differences - The findings add further weight to the idea of mix-and-match boosting. - link
Google’s next US antitrust issue: Google Maps - The DOJ investigates if Google Maps’ various bundling schemes are anticompetitive. - link
Apple plans to build its own financial infrastructure for payments and lending - Financial services will get the full Apple treatment, sources say. - link
IT giant Globant discloses hack after Lapsus$ leaks 70GB of stolen data - Data released by the group purports to belong to Apple, Facebook, and others. - link
Today’s best deals: 8BitDo game controllers, Razer gaming mice, and more - Dealmaster also has the new iPad Air, recommended board games, and LG OLED TVs. - link
From Jokes Subreddit
What’s the opposite of “young, dumb, and full of cum”? -
It was time for Father John’s Saturday night bath and the young nun, Sister Magdalene, had prepared the bath water and towels just the way the old nun had instructed. -
Sister Magdalene was also instructed not to look at Father John’s nakedness if she could help it, do whatever he told her to do, and pray.
The next morning the old nun asked Sister Magdalene how the Saturday night bath had gone.
‘Oh, sister,’ said the young nun dreamily, ‘I’ve been saved.’
‘Saved? And how did that come about?’ asked the old nun.
‘Well, when Father John was soaking in the tub, he asked me to wash him, and while I was washing him he guided my hand down between his legs where he said the Lord keeps the Key to Heaven.’
‘Did he now?’ said the old nun evenly.
Sister Magdalene continued, ’and Father John said that if the Key to Heaven fitted my lock, the portals of Heaven would be opened to me and I would be assured salvation and eternal peace.
And then Father John guided his Key to Heaven into my lock.’
‘Is that a fact?’ said the old nun even more evenly.
‘At first it hurt terribly, but Father John said the pathway to salvation was often painful and that the glory of God would soon swell my heart with ecstasy. And it did, it felt so good being saved.’
’That wicked old bastard, said the old nun. ’He told me it was Gabriel’s Horn, and I’ve been blowing it for 40 years . . . .
A man asks a farmer if he can work for a night’s lodging and a meal. -
Farmer gets a knock on his door, it’s a man in his mid-thirties who looks like he’s been traveling a while. The man asks if he could earn a meal and a place to stay for the night.
“Do you have any skills?” The farmer asks.
“Well, I do have a rare gift – I can communicate with animals.”
“…sure you can,” the farmer says. “But I like your style. I’ll put you to work.”
So the man does a few chores around the farm and earns his meal. At dinner, he says to the farmer, “I know you don’t believe me, but I actually do communicate with animals. I can prove it. I spoke to the hens, and they said you were there every morning before dawn to collect their eggs, and you’ve been doing so every day for years since your wife passed.”
The farmer says, “Wow, that’s exactly right!”
The man continues, “I spoke to your cow, and she said you’ve faithfully milked her every day before dawn, and you’ve been doing so every day for years since your wife passed.”
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Drew Angerer/Getty Images