The Full Belmonte, 2/27/22
Civilian volunteers sorted empty bottles to be used for Molotov cocktails in a parking lot in Dnipro, Ukraine, on Sunday.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
"KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine agreed on Sunday to talks with Russia ‘without preconditions,’ even as President Vladimir V. Putin further escalated tensions by placing his nuclear forces on alert.
‘We agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet with the Russian delegation without preconditions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, near the Pripyat River,’ Mr. Zelensky announced on his official Telegram channel, describing a phone call Sunday with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus.
But just before Mr. Zelensky’s announcement, Mr. Putin issued a new threat to the West, which has increasingly rallied behind Ukraine as its citizens and its military fought back against the Russian invasion. In brief remarks aired on state television, he told his defense minister and his top military commander to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert, characterizing the move as a response to the West’s ‘aggressive’ actions.
Not only are Western countries implementing ‘illegitimate sanctions’ against Russia, Mr. Putin said, ‘but senior officials of leading NATO countries are allowing themselves to make aggressive statements directed at our country.’ Many analysts had expected Mr. Putin to use nuclear threats to push back against the West as tensions rose.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview with CBS News’s ‘Face the Nation’ that Mr. Putin ‘is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that’s totally unacceptable.’ She added: ‘We have to continue to condemn these actions.’
Details about the meeting at the border were not yet clear, including who would participate. Mr. Zelensky earlier on Sunday had rejected holding talks in Belarus — as Russia has been demanding — because Russia staged part of its invasion from Belarus after amassing troops in the country. But Mr. Zelensky’s stance shifted after he spoke by phone with Mr. Lukashenko, the Belarusian leader, Mr. Putin’s closest international ally.
The Russian delegation, led by a former Russian culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, is already in Belarus.
The diplomatic news came on a day when Russian troops, at least for a time, drew closer to the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, according to videos and photographs analyzed by The New York Times. The footage showed Ukrainians firing rockets toward Russian troops, as well as some Russian military vehicles burning and others being ransacked by Ukrainian forces.
As the Ukrainian resistance continued — and images of armed and determined civilians circulated widely on social media — other countries announced more steps to support the besieged country. A growing number of countries said they would ban Russian aircraft from their airspace, and Germany’s chancellor announced a significant increase in military spending, reversing a longstanding policy.” Read more at New York Times
“Russian troops entered Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv and fighting is underway in the streets, according to the Associated Press.
Videos posted on Ukrainian media and social networks showed Russian vehicles moving across Kharkiv and a light vehicle burning on the street. Residents were urged to stay inside.
The troops in Kharkiv arrived after Russia unleashed a wave of attacks on Ukraine targeting airfields and fuel facilities.
Two large explosions rocked an area south of the capital just before 1 a.m. local time. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said one of the blasts was near the Zhuliany airport and the other blast hit an oil depot about 25 miles south of the capital, according to the mayor of Vasylkiv via the AP. Russian forces also blew up a gas pipeline in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, according to the Ukrainian president's office.
The United Nations says it has confirmed at least 240 civilian casualties, including at least 64 people killed in the fighting in Ukraine that erupted since Russia’s invasion on Thursday, according to the AP. Though, the UN believes the toll may be ‘considerably higher.’
More than 200,000 people have fled the Ukraine to neighboring countries. UN officials believe up to 4 million people could leave if fighting continues.
Meanwhile, the United States and its European allies agreed to remove ‘selected’ Russian banks from the international SWIFT messaging system, which allows for the movement of financial transactions.” Read more at USA Today
“Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected Russia claims that it is ‘ready for talks’ with Ukraine in Belarus. In a national address on Sunday morning, Zelenskiy said he remained open to talks, but in other locations that are not showing aggression towards Ukraine. Earlier, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had told reporters the Russian delegation had arrived in Belarus for talks and were ‘now waiting for the Ukrainians’
There are reports that a gas pipeline is on fire in Kharkiv after a Russian attack, while an oil terminal in Vasylkiv, south-west of the capital, Kyiv, has also been targeted. The government has warned that smoke from the explosion in Kharkiv could cause an ‘environmental catastrophe’ and advised people to cover their windows.
The 13 Ukrainian soldiers who were reportedly killed while defending an island in the Black Sea from an air and sea bombardment – reportedly telling a Russian navy warship to ‘go fuck yourself’ when asked to surrender – may still be alive, according to Ukrainian officials.
The United Nations security council is due to vote on Sunday to call for a rare emergency special session of the 193-member General Assembly on the invasion, diplomats said. The vote needs nine votes in favour and cannot be vetoed. Diploamts say it is likely to pass, diplomats said. Only 10 such emergency special sessions have been convened since 1950.
Britain is preparing a ‘hit list’ of Russian oligarchs to be targeted by sanctions in the coming months, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.
Truss said there would be ‘nowhere left to hide’ for the super-rich allies of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin. She told the Sunday Times that new names would be added to the list every few weeks as ministers seek to ratchet up the pressure on Putin.
Liquor stores and bars in the US and Canada are targeting Russia’s national drink in a show of unity with the people of Ukraine. Shelves in both countries are being stripped of Russian vodka, with the Republican governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, announcing on Saturday the removal of ‘Russian-made and Russian-branded spirits from our liquor and wine outlets until further notice’.
Japanese billionaire Hiroshi ‘Mickey’ Mikitani has said he will donate $8.7m to the government of Ukraine, calling Russia’s invasion ‘a challenge to democracy’. The founder of e-commerce giant Rakuten said in a letter addressed to Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the donation of 1bn yen ($8.7m) will go toward ‘humanitarian activities to help people in Ukraine who are victims of the violence’, Agence France-Presse reported.
A Ukrainian company in charge of building and maintaining roads said it was removing all road signs that could be used by invading Russian forces to find their way around the country. The company, Ukravtodor, said in a Facebook post: ‘The enemy has poor communications, they cannot navigate the terrain. Let us help them get straight to hell.’” Read more at The Guardian
“President Biden will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday to a deeply pessimistic nation, one that largely sees the economy worsening under his watch, disapproves of his leadership on key issues and currently prefers that Republicans control Congress after the November elections, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Biden will be dealing with multiple problems when he speaks to the nation in prime time from the House chamber. Russian troops have invaded Ukraine, disrupting the stability of Europe and challenging the Western alliance. The sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and its allies could hike oil prices even as the country continues to labor under inflationary costs. Meanwhile, Biden faces the fallout from remaining pieces of a domestic agenda that have been stalled for months.
The poll finds Biden’s presidential approval rating at a new low, with 37 percent saying they approve of the job he is doing and 55 percent saying they disapprove. Overall, 44 percent say they strongly disapprove. Predictably, Republicans overwhelmingly disapprove (86 percent) of his job performance, but most independents (61 percent) also rate him negatively. Among Democrats, 77 percent give Biden positive marks.” Read more at Washington Post
“‘I will not pretend this will be painless,’ Joe Biden warned Americans before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And as the war disrupts already hard-hit international trade, US consumers are likely to soon see just how painful the consequences of the conflict will be in the US.
Inflation is already at a 40-year high in the US and, depending on the length and depth of Russia’s war, any further disruption could cause prices to rise at the pump and perhaps on store shelves.
The invasion could also have potential long-term implications for Biden’s green energy transition since a significant amount of key metals are mined and produced there, including nickel, palladium and aluminum.
While US-Russian trade is relatively small, the country is home to a broad range of natural resources, from crude oil to wheat. Prices for those natural resources soared following Russia’s incursion, although most are off the highs they hit when the invasion began.
On Thursday, Nymex futures prices for the most active crude oil and gasoline contracts – an indication of the future cost of buying oil – spiked to their highest levels since July 2014, with the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate briefly touching $100 a barrel and reformulated gasoline prices rising as high as $3.07 a gallon.” Read more at The Guardian
Understanding the situation in Ukraine
“A part of the NATO treaty could turn Russia's invasion of Ukraine into a wider war. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty means that an attack on one member state is determined to be an attack on all. Ukraine is not part of the alliance — but some of its neighbors are.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has suddenly and dramatically upended everyday lives across the country. These photos show the sobering cost in the lives of ordinary Ukrainians.Thousands of civilians have been forced to flee their homes. If you want to help, these organizations are currently accepting aid.
The conflict between Ukraine and Russia goes back decades. We've compiled stories that will help you make sense of the current violence.
In the weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia consistently deployed sarcasm in its messaging. It's a strategic tool, says one Russian expert. ‘It's a kind of postmodern cynicism, trying to put you on the back foot, trying to confuse you.’” Read more at NPRA burning power station in eastern Ukraine.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
A global retreat
“Democracy has been on the decline worldwide for more than 15 years. One major reason is the growing ruthlessness of authoritarian leaders, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin. Today, I will walk through how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fits into the broader geopolitical trends of the past decade and a half.
Putin has spent more than two decades consolidating power, rebuilding Russia’s military and weakening his enemies. He has repeatedly undermined democratic movements and popular uprisings, including those in Syria and Belarus. He has meddled in Western elections. And he has deployed Russian troops to enforce his will, including in Georgia and Crimea.
The invasion of Ukraine — the largest war in Europe since World War II — is a significant escalation of this behavior. The country’s fall would mark a violent end to one of the world’s democracies.
Maneuvers like Putin’s, as well as insufficient pushback from other governments, have fostered this global democratic decline, experts say. Just one in five people now live in countries designated as ‘free,’ down from nearly one in two in 2005, a new report from Freedom House found.
The invasion of Ukraine is ‘a taste of what a world without checks on antidemocratic behavior would look like,’ Michael Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, told me. He remains hopeful that democracies will rally to impose serious penalties on Russia, signaling that they will not tolerate Putin’s behavior. But, he warned, ‘if they don’t, this is going to set the world back in a major way — not just for democracy, but for the rule of law.’
Vladimir Putin.Pool photo by Mikhail Metzel
A war on democracies
The collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago gave birth to democracies across Eastern Europe — and to Putin’s grievances. He once described the Soviet breakup as ‘the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century’ — a time period that included two world wars and the Holocaust. He has suggested he wants to reverse that collapse.
Putin’s complaints are less ideological — he is not a communist, and has not ruled like one — and more self-interested: He wants to protect his hold on power as well as further Russia’s global reach, which would increase support for him at home.
But the effect of his rule has been to undermine democracy globally. After Georgia moved to join NATO, with the support of voters, Russia invaded in 2008 and has meddled in the country’s politics ever since. Russia has worked with autocratic leaders to help crush democracies and protests where Putin believes that his country has security or economic interests, including in Kazakhstan and Venezuela.
He has also tried to destabilize democracies in the West — by interfering in elections in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, among other nations.
In Ukraine, Russia’s meddling in the 2004 presidential contest helped spawn protests against corruption and for fair elections, a movement known as the Orange Revolution. In another round of protests a decade later, Ukrainians overthrew a pro-Russian government and replaced it with one closer to Europe and the West.
Russia responded by invading and annexing Crimea, in southern Ukraine, and by backing separatists in the east, who have fought a grinding war against the Ukrainian government ever since. Now, Putin is trying to seize control of all of Ukraine.
Dozens were killed during 2014 protests in Ukraine.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Unchecked autocrats
Democracy has also declined globally because democratic leaders have done too little to stand up for themselves, the Freedom House report argued.
As is now clear, the world’s response to Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula was not enough to deter Putin from going further. Even the sanctions imposed on Russia after its full assault on Ukraine this week stopped short of maximum punishment, sparing much of the Russian energy sector that Europe’s economy still relies on.
At the same time, autocratic governments have increasingly worked together, using their collective economic and political power to create a cushion against punishments from other governments. China approved Russian wheat imports this past week, effectively softening the impact of the West’s new sanctions.
Authoritarians have also abandoned pretenses of democratic norms. Putin, as well as rulers in Nicaragua, Venezuela and elsewhere, once tried to at least maintain the appearance of free and fair elections. But now they regularly jail political opponents, denying the opposition the ability to campaign.
All of these moves have shown other leaders with authoritarian aspirations what they can do as the liberal democratic order loses its sway.
In that context, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is part of a broader test: whether the global erosion of democracy will continue unchecked.
The Latest on Ukraine
Ukrainian fighters waged ferocious battles to maintain control of Kyiv and other cities.
‘Everybody in our country needs to defend’: Ukrainian civilians are taking the fight to Russian troops.
The war is already costing Russia’s economy. Airlines canceled flights, demands for cash spiked and economists warned of more inflation.
Putin and President Biden are engaged in a showdown with the fate of millions at stake.
Putin faces personal sanctions, but most of his wealth appears hidden.” Read more at New York Times
100,000 turned out in Berlin today to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and show solidarity with the Ukrainian people. This is the Strasse des 17. Jun. Photo: Markus Schreiber/AP
“Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing in days what decades of American prodding and pressure couldn't:
He's getting Germany and other European nations to unite, expand defense spending and strategic thinking, and do more to protect themselves and others, Axios World author Dave Lawler reports.
Why it matters: Putin calculated a divided America and Europe would make it hard to punish him for invading Ukraine. Instead, he’s spawned a new coalition of the willing that spreads from Europe, to U.S. companies, to Russians in the streets….
Suddenly, almost everything is on the table.
Zoom in: The U.S. has been pushing Germany for years to spend 2% of its GDP on defense to no avail. But in a speech today, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said there was now a ‘new reality.’
‘The 24th February marks a turning-point in the history of our continent,’ Scholz said, pointing to Thursday's invasion.
Not only will Germany hit the 2% threshold, Scholz proposed enshrining that commitment in the constitution.
In other dramatic reversals in the past week, Scholz suspended the Nord Stream 2 Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline and announced that Germany would begin arming Ukraine.
The bottom line: Close observers of German politics said they've never seen so many doctrines of German foreign policy dismantled so quickly.” Read more at Axios
Ex-president Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, where he defended describing Vladimir Putin as smart. Photograph: Joe Marino/UPI/REX/Shutterstock
“Donald Trump, the former US president, has defended his description of Russia’s Vladimir Putin as ‘smart’ while seeking to blunt accusations that he admires the invasion of Ukraine.
Trump reiterated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen by voter fraud as he argued that the invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he was still in the White House.
‘The Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling,’ he told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday night. ‘It’s an outrage and an atrocity that should never have been allowed to occur.’
‘We are praying for the proud people of Ukraine. God bless them all. As everyone understands, this horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and if I was the president.’
Election officials, numerous judges and Trump’s own attorney general found no evidence that the election was rigged. Having retold ‘the big lie’, he went on to compare himself favourably with other presidents’ handling of Putin.
‘Under Bush, Russia invaded Georgia. Under Obama, Russia took Crimea. Under Biden, Russia invaded Ukraine. I stand as the only president of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country.’
Democrats dismissed the speech and condemned Trump for still cosying up to Putin. Adonna Biel, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: ‘After spending four years selling out Ukraine, the defeated former president took the stage at CPAC to double down on his shameless praise for Putin as innocent Ukrainians shelter from bombs and missiles at the hands of Russia.
“This has been the theme of the Republican party all week, making clear that their party is beholden to a defeated former president who lost them the White House, House, and Senate.”
An audience of about 5,000 people at CPAC, the biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives, roared and whistled their approval. Some chanted: “USA! USA!”
Trump, whose “America first” approach rattled Nato allies, claimed that Russia and other countries respected the US when he was president and blamed Joe Biden for displaying weakness on the global stage.
“I have no doubt that President Putin made his decision to ruthlessly attack Ukraine only after watching the pathetic withdrawal from Afghanistan, where the military was taken out first, our soldiers were killed and American hostages, plus $85bn worth of the finest equipment anywhere in the world were left behind,” he said.
Trump, who notoriously deferred to autocrats, also responded to criticism over his description this week of Putin’s invasion of separatist areas of Ukraine as ‘genius’, ‘savvy’ and ‘smart’.
He asserted that Putin has suffered no repercussions beyond sanctions, which he has shrugged off for 25 years. ‘The problem is not that Putin is smart – which of course, he’s smart – but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb. They’ve so far allowed him to get away with this travesty and an assault on humanity.’
He added: ‘So sad. Putin is playing Biden like a drum and it’s not a pretty thing as somebody that loves our country to watch.’
Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had more than 100 contacts with Russia, prompting a special counsel investigation that stopped short of alleging direct collusion. As president, Trump was notoriously reluctant to condemn Putin and, at a summit in Helsinki, took the Russian leader’s word over that of his own intelligence agencies. His administration did impose some sanctions on Moscow, however.
Trump recalled on Saturday: ‘I was with Putin a lot. I spent a lot of time with him. I got along with him … I did a lot of things that were very tough on Russia. No president was ever as tough on Russia as I was.’
‘But with respect to what’s going on now, it would have been so easy for me to stop this travesty from happening. He understood me and he understood that I didn’t play games. This would not have happened. Someday, I’ll tell you exactly what we talked about. And he did have an affinity, there’s no question about it, for Ukraine. I said, never let it happen, better not let it happen.’
He added: ‘I also warned Nato about the danger of Russia and look at the consequences. On foreign policy, the world rightly had a healthy fear that as president I would stand strong for Americans’ priorities.’
During an 85-minute speech to a packed ballroom at CPAC, Trump, who contested the 2016 and 2020 elections, also gave his strongest hint yet that he will run for president in 2024. ‘We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” he said. “We’re going to be doing it again a third time.’
There were loud cheers from the crowd, many of whom wore ‘Make America great again’ caps and ‘Trump 2024’ regalia. There were shouts of ‘Four more years!’ and ‘We want Trump!’
The former president went on to rail against ‘leftwing tyranny’ and ‘crackdowns, censorship and cancel culture’, praise protesting Canadian truckers and brand Biden’s supreme court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, ‘a radical left zealot’. He claimed that the court’s existing justices, including conservative Brett Kavanaugh, are ‘terrified of the radical left’ and ‘afraid to do the right thing’.
Trump pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that his 2016 election rival, ‘Crooked’ Hillary Clinton, spied on him, prompting chants of ‘Lock her up!’ And he accused Democrats of caring more about Ukraine’s borders than America’s own.
He declared: ‘You could take the five worst presidents in American history and put them together and they would not do the damage that Joe Biden’s administration has done in just a very short period.’” Read more at The Guardian
Donald Trump and William Barr, who was then U.S. attorney general, at the White House in 2019.
PHOTO:KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS
“Former Attorney General William Barr writes in a new book that former President Donald Trump has ‘shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed,’ and that it is time for Republicans to focus on rising new leaders in the party.
The release of the former attorney general’s 600-page book, ‘One Damn Thing After Another,’ is coming as Mr. Trump, who remains the GOP’s dominant figure, contemplates another presidential run. Mr. Barr writes that he was convinced that Mr. Trump could have won re-election in 2020 if he had ‘just exercised a modicum of self-restraint, moderating even a little of his pettiness.’
‘The election was not ‘stolen,’ Mr. Barr writes. ‘Trump lost it.’ Mr. Barr urges conservatives to look to ‘an impressive array of younger candidates’ who share Mr. Trump’s agenda but not his ‘erratic personal behavior.’ He didn’t mention any of those candidates by name.
A spokesman for Mr. Trump didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Barr’s book. Last summer the former president called his former attorney general ‘a disappointment in every sense of the word.’
Mr. Barr’s memoir adds to a growing list of books by senior Trump administration officials and journalists about the former president. It is scheduled for release March 8 by the William Morrow imprint of HarperCollins. Both HarperCollins and The Wall Street Journal are owned by News Corp.
The recollections and conclusions by Mr. Barr are notable because he was one of Mr. Trump’s most powerful cabinet secretaries and was once such a close ally that Democrats accused him of acting more like the president’s defense attorney than an apolitical law-enforcement official.
Mr. Barr, a respected figure in Washington conservative circles, returned to head the Justice Department in February 2019 after Mr. Trump ousted his first attorney general, former Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican. Mr. Barr served in the same post at the end of the George H.W. Bush administration and was a corporate lawyer in between.
During much of his time in the Trump administration, some said Mr. Barr protected the president at the expense of the Justice Department’s independence, especially over his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Mr. Barr issued his own summary of Mr. Mueller’s investigative report depicting the results in a way that Mr. Mueller and others described as misleading or overly favorable to Mr. Trump. He also worked in the ensuing months to undermine some of the prosecutions spawned by the Mueller investigation. An example is his decision to drop the criminal case against Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser.
Mr. Barr has said that he intervened to correct what he saw as overreach by the prosecutors and flaws in the department’s approach to those cases, a stance he maintains in his book.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
June Knightly was shot and killed during a Portland protest rally on 19 February. Photograph: Kat Knapp
“The shooting of a respected volunteer during a racial justice protest in Portland, Oregon last weekend has roiled the activist community in the city, and raised fresh fears about ‘vigilante violence’ and escalating extremism in America.
Authorities on Tuesday filed murder charges against 43-year-old Benjamin Smith, who police say showed up to a protest against police violence on Saturday night, yelled at demonstrators to leave, and then shot at the group. He killed 60-year-old June Knightly and wounded four others, police say.
Knightly, a longtime activist involved in racial justice protests and LGBTQ+ organizing, was known as a ‘peacemaker’ who strived to keep people safe during protests. The night of her death she had been working as a traffic safety volunteer at a demonstration calling for justice for Amir Locke and Daunte Wright, two Black men killed by police in Minnesota.
Knightly’s friends and local advocates said the violence was predictable in Portland, which has seen far-right gatherings and chaotic and sometimes violent protests in the last year. The region also has a dark history of white supremacy and racist hate crimes despite its liberal reputation. The violence against protesters also comes three months after the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was treated as a hero among extremist Republicans and far-right groups after he killed two men at an anti-racism demonstration in Wisconsin. Advocates warn of a growing threat that extremists – emboldened by Rittenhouse’s court victory, radicalized online, and encouraged by some Republicans – will commit more acts of violence.
‘Radicalized and angry’
Smith ‘confronted’ protesters at Portland’s Normandale Park at about 8 pm local time on Saturday, prosecutors say, ‘yelling at them and demanding they leave the area’. The activists told Smith to leave them alone. Instead, Smith demanded they ‘make’ him leave,’ and ‘aggressively’ approached one of them, who pushed Smith back. Moments later, he began shooting, according to court records.
Knightly and four other people were hit. Knightly and three other women who were wounded were not directly part of the march, one surviving victim told the New York Times, but were helping reroute traffic. None of them were armed, she said, adding that the gunman called them ‘terrorists’ and slurs before shooting.
The shooting ended when someone shot Smith, officials said. That individual was initially arrested, but is not facing charges and was not named in the charging documents. One surviving victim was struck in the neck and is paralyzed, another was struck in the abdomen, and two others were treated at a hospital and discharged. Smith was hit in the hip and hospitalized.
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Kristine Christenson, Smith’s roommate, said that she and others in their apartment complex were ‘heartbroken,’ but weren’t surprised to learn of the shooting. ‘[Smith’s] been talking about wanting to do something like this for a while,” she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, the person who fired back on Smith saved my life.’
Christenson said she had lived with Smith for seven years, but had felt increasingly threatened in recent years. ‘He made me extremely uncomfortable and unsafe in my own living space.’
‘[Smith] got angrier and more and more rightwing over the past few years,’ she said in an email, adding that it appeared he had become ‘radicalized’ and was slipping “further and further down this alt right rabbit hole”.
Christenson said she tried to keep her distance, but that she overheard him listening to rightwing content, including from far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. She said Smith wore a ‘Kyle Rittenhouse true patriot’ shirt and often talked angrily about leftwing protesters, Black Lives Matter and ‘antifa’, unhoused people living on the streets and Covid restrictions.
‘They blamed the victims’
The shooting sent shock waves through a city that has seen frequent protests since the George Floyd uprisings of 2020, and occasional clashes between anti-fascist activists and far-right protesters.
But advocates say the response from law enforcement leaders to the shooting only exacerbated concerns.
The initial statement from the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) said the shooting had stated ‘with a confrontation between an armed homeowner and armed protesters’.
Smith was not a homeowner and had gone to the demonstration, which was down the street from his apartment. But the narrative quickly spread in national media.
Portland police spokesperson Kevin Allen did not say why the original press release referred to a ‘homeowner’, but he said in an email that an investigation determined that was inaccurate: ‘The use of the term was never intended to mislead anyone.’
He said there was ‘tremendous amount of pressure’ to release information in real time and that the department strives to ‘always remember the victims and their loved ones’ in communications.
The city later updated its statement to call Smith ‘an armed area resident’, but to advocates the mistake was part of a pattern of city leaders and law enforcement officials misrepresenting racial justice protesters and failing to address the threats of the the far-right, advocates said.
PPB critics point to a list of recent scandals: at one 2017 protest in Portland, federal officers allowed a member of a rightwing ‘patriot’ militia-style group to help arrest an anti-fascist activist; in 2019, a lieutenant was caught exchanging friendly text messages with a rightwing leader, and later cleared of wrongdoing; in 2020, the department allegedly deployed teargas against racial justice demonstrators 300 times on 20 different days; in 2021, police leaked a false story claiming that the first Black woman to serve as a Portland city commissioner, who has been critical of the department, was a hit-and-run suspect; and earlier this year, it was revealed that Portland police training documents included a meme that mocked protesters as ‘dirty hippies’ and celebrated using violence against them.
‘This is a pattern and practice of Portland police,’ said Sandy Chung, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon. ‘This seems to be an effort by Portland police to frame the story as ‘just a confrontation’, and that somehow the people involved in providing traffic safety for the march were also culpable, when there is no evidence of that.’
‘This is blaming victims for the harms committed against them,’ said Bobbin Singh, executive director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, adding that the shooting was ‘completely predictable and inevitable’. He has since called on Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, to resign and for the leadership of PPB to be dismantled.
Wheeler in particular is facing intense scrutiny over comments he made in 2021 after a year of sustained protests, saying he wanted to ‘unmask’ protesters committing vandalism and arson, and that it was time to ‘hurt them a little bit’.” Read more at The Guardian
Michelle Obama sits with her husband, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg at the White House in 2010. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP
“Michelle Obama would put Republicans ‘in a very difficult position’ if she ran for president in 2024, a former Trump aide said, because the former first lady is both popular and ‘immune to criticism’.
Monica Crowley, a former treasury spokeswoman, was speaking on Saturday at CPAC, the conservative conference in Orlando, Florida, at which Donald Trump strongly suggested he will run again in two years’ time.
‘If [Democrats] were to run Michelle Obama,’ Crowley said, during a panel session, ‘that would put us in a very difficult position because they’d reach for a candidate who is completely plausible, very popular, and immune to criticism.
Also, when you think about her positioning, she [was a Democratic convention] keynote speaker in 2020, she wrote her autobiography [Becoming, a bestseller] and did a 50-city tour, she has massive Netflix and Spotify deals, and she’s got a voting rights group alongside [the Georgia politician and campaigner] Stacey Abrams.’
Crowley, a sometime Fox News contributor, is well-connected in Trumpworld. In 2016, Trump sought to appoint her as a deputy national security adviser. She withdrew, amid allegations of plagiarism in a book about the Obama administration and in her PhD dissertation.
Crowley called the allegations a ‘straight-up political hit job’ but the book was withdrawn and updated. Columbia University concluded that Crowley’s PhD contained ‘localised instances of plagiarism’ which did not constitute research misconduct. She became treasury spokeswoman in 2019 and, according to the New York Times, was ‘seen as a positive presence’.
Obama is beloved among Democrats and polls highly in surveys of notional fields should Joe Biden go against all indications and decide not to run for a second term, and should Kamala Harris, the vice-president, not then secure the nomination. The former first lady has spoken up on key Democratic policies, including the need to protect voting rights.
A candidacy is feared by Republicans all the way up to Trump, who according to the Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender was convinced Democrats would parachute Obama in to replace Biden at the 2020 convention.
But she has repeatedly said she has no wish to enter politics as a candidate.
In 2018, she told a conference in Boston: ‘The reason why I don’t want to run for president … is that, first of all, you have to want the job.
And you can’t just say, ‘Well, you’re a woman, run.’ We just can’t find the women we like and ask them to do it, because there are millions of women who are inclined and do have the passion for politics.
I’ve never had the passion for politics. I just happened to be married to somebody who has the passion for politics, and he drug me kicking and screaming into the arena.’
Obama has also said she would like to retire – or spend more time ‘chasing summer’.
Her husband has said: ‘Michelle will not run for president. I can guarantee it.’” Read more at The Guardian
“WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., spoke before a meeting of white nationalists who are supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin, drawing another rebuke Saturday from the leader of the Republican National Committee and others.
‘White supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party,’ said RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
Greene, who is barred from sitting on congressional committees because of past extremist comments, said she did not know the views of the delegates at the conference and did not apologize for her appearance.” Read more at USA Today
Chris Licht, at a taping of ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ in 2017. He is currently the executive producer of the show.Credit...Chad Batka for The New York Times
“Chris Licht, a veteran television producer who helped create ‘Morning Joe’ at MSNBC and later successfully retooled morning and late-night programming at CBS, is set to be the next leader of CNN, according to three people with direct knowledge of the decision.
Mr. Licht, 50, who is currently the executive producer of ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,’ is poised to succeed Jeff Zucker, the CNN president whose nine-year tenure abruptly ended this month when he resigned over an undisclosed romantic relationship with a colleague.
He is expected to join the network once its parent company, WarnerMedia, completes a merger with Discovery Inc., a deal that could close by April. Mr. Licht and David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery, are professional and social friends who have known each other for more than a decade.
Discussions between Mr. Licht and Mr. Zaslav began shortly after Mr. Zucker’s departure, and accelerated over the past two weeks, one of the people said. A formal announcement is expected as soon as this coming week. Puck first reported the news of Mr. Licht’s selection.
Overseeing CNN — a sprawling news organization with a worldwide footprint, thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue — would be by far the biggest undertaking of Mr. Licht’s career in television. And he is joining the network at a time of turmoil.
Its newsroom was roiled by the stunning exit of Mr. Zucker, who commanded deep loyalty among anchors and correspondents. Its prime-time and morning ratings have been mired in third place behind rivals Fox News and MSNBC. And the looming takeover by Discovery has raised questions about the future direction of the network.
Mr. Licht is a co-creator of ‘Morning Joe,’ the hugely successful MSNBC franchise that still dominates that network’s morning lineup. He jumped to CBS News in 2011, where he was widely credited with turning around the fortunes of ‘CBS This Morning,’ adding the hosts Charlie Rose and Gayle King and introducing a chattier, more freewheeling format.
In 2016, CBS tapped Mr. Licht to take over ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which had struggled in its early months to secure viewers and the critical praise enjoyed by Mr. Colbert’s predecessor, David Letterman.’
Mr. Licht engineered a remarkable ratings turnaround, encouraging Mr. Colbert to more forcefully engage with current events and political news. He added live shows after major news events like election nights and State of the Union speeches. By 2017, Mr. Colbert had achieved something Mr. Letterman rarely did in his long career: besting NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in the ratings, a winning streak that continues five years later.
Late-night comedy is a different challenge than a global network at the scale of CNN.
The channel currently has dozens of journalists on the ground in Ukraine covering the Russian invasion. It is weeks away from starting a new digital subscription service, CNN+, a late entry in the news streaming wars to which the network has devoted tens of millions of dollars. Mr. Zucker’s exit was also followed by the forced resignation of his romantic partner, Allison Gollust, who served as CNN’s communications and marketing chief.
Under Mr. Zucker, the channel’s programming moved into more partisan territory, driven in part by the scathing attacks it faced from then-President Donald J. Trump. Recently, John Malone, the chairman of Liberty Media who will be a key player in the soon-to-be-formed Warner Bros. Discovery, lamented publicly that CNN had drifted from its traditional down-the-middle news coverage.
Mr. Licht is likely to have the full-throated support of Mr. Zaslav, the Discovery chief executive. The men dine together several times a year, and Mr. Licht has been a regular attendee of Mr. Zaslav’s starry Labor Day weekend party in East Hampton, N.Y.
Mr. Licht, a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse communications school at Syracuse University (where a control room for students is named after him), started his television career in local news. He worked in Los Angeles around the time of the O.J. Simpson trial and spent time in San Francisco before moving to MSNBC, where he became a producer of Joe Scarborough’s talk show.
He has a family connection to his new employer: His wife, Jenny Blanco, worked at CNN for several years as a producer for the anchor Anderson Cooper and then as a director of talent recruiting and development. They began dating while on assignment at the Athens Summer Olympics in 2004. Read more at New York Times
“Sporting world reacts to Russia's invasion of Ukraine
The Union of European Football Associations announced that this year's Champions League Final will no longer take place in St. Petersburg, Russia, following an extraordinary meeting of the governing body's Executive Committee on Friday. The 2022 final was scheduled to be held at Krestovsky Stadium, which is sponsored by Russian state-owned company Gazprom, but will now be moved to the Stade de France in Paris to be played on the original date of May 28. Separately, Formula One announced that the Russian Grand Prix, originally scheduled to take place in Sochi on September 23-25, could not be held ‘in the current circumstances.’ Yesterday, the Polish and Swedish national teams announced they will not face Russia in crucial 2022 World Cup qualification playoff matches in March in protest of Russia's invasion.” Read more at CNN