Reading archive 2022-02-28

The Forgotten District: Is North Carolina congressman and Trump acolyte Madison Cawthorn exposing the limits of the new celebrity politics? - "John Hood, the chairman of the conservative John Locke Foundation, wrote an editorial calling Cawthorn 'a callow and appallingly ignorant young man who regularly embarrasses conservatives and Republicans.'

"Dale Wiggins, 70, met me at the county administrative office wearing denim overalls and a camouflage shirt. He was missing the next-to-last day of deer hunting season to speak with me. Wiggins considers himself an Eisenhower Republican. In his 13 years as a Graham County commissioner, he has advocated for Medicaid expansion, supported the federal infrastructure bill and maintained a belief in unions and vaccines. It’s hard to believe he and Cawthorn belong to the same political party. 'To my knowledge, national Republicans don’t have a platform,' Wiggins says."

The world's largest sovereign wealth fund says it'll dump its Russian assets over the Ukraine invasion

Jennifer Griffin Once Again Brutally Fact-Checks a Pro-Putin Fox News Segment: Griffin called out a Fox News guest as a Putin ”apologist” in just the latest instance of her bursting Kremlin-friendly narratives on her own network.

Arizona Governor Says He’d Rather Have a White Nationalist in State Legislature than a Democrat: Doug Ducey spent $500,000 to help elect Wendy Rogers — a lawmaker who’s making common cause with overt racists. He’s apparently just fine with that decision

How Putin's oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns: Campaign finance reports show troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to Trump and top Republican leaders.

The war in Ukraine isn’t working out the way Russia intended: Tactical blunders and fierce resistance from the Ukrainians risk ensnaring the Russians in a protracted conflict, military experts say

‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes Putin is trying to take down the entire world order, the veteran Russia watcher said in an interview. But there are ways even ordinary Americans can fight back. - "We are already, she said, in the middle of a third World War, whether we’ve fully grasped it or not. 

"'Sadly, we are treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again,' Hill told me. 

"Those old historical patterns include Western businesses who fail to see how they help build a tyrant’s war chest, admirers enamored of an autocrat’s 'strength' and politicians’ tendency to point fingers inward for political gain instead of working together for their nation’s security."

Frustrated Putin may order escalation of violence in Ukraine, U.S. officials say: The U.S. has solid intelligence that Putin is expressing unusual bursts of anger at people in his inner circle over the state of the military campaign so far, officials said.

Microsoft detected ‘destructive cyberattacks’ against Ukraine hours before Russian invasion

In just 72 hours, Europe overhauled its entire post-Cold War relationship with Russia - "'We have to accept as Germans that we have to pay for our security in economic terms, that we can no longer hope for Pax Americana — that we can make our business with whoever we want, and somebody else will pay the economic price for our security,' said Franziska Brantner, a state secretary at the German Economy Ministry who was involved in her country’s shift on defense spending and weapons deliveries to Ukraine. 'These days are over.'"

Who is the pro-Moscow Ukrainian mogul Viktor Medvedchuk?

Ukraine invasion opens faint, but once unthinkable, fissures between Putin and Russian oligarchs: Social media posts and other messages have reflected rare public misgivings with the decision of war

Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin fully loses her patience with Fox’s Ukraine punditry

Western businesses’ flight from Russia continues with Shell, GM and others ending or suspending dealings: Companies cut ties to comply with sanctions or to express outrage over Russia’s Ukraine invasion