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US May Recognize Russian Control of Parts of Ukraine - The Wednesday AM Quickie 4/23/25

By Corey Pein —

Check out Larry David's sendup of Bill Maher's dinner with Donald Trump, in case you missed it. - Corey

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THE BIG NEWS

Russia Breaks Easter Ceasefire in Ukraine as US Offers Up Crimea on a Silver Platter

The fog of war around the fate of Ukraine has been thick these days – and the fumes out of the White House aren't helping. Aspiring Tsar Vladimir Putin declared a 30-hour unilateral ceasefire on Saturday, which Russian forces proceeded to immediately violate. Per the Washington Post, "Kyiv saw the proposed truce as an attempt to give the impression of Russian willingness to end the war amid ramped-up US pressure for an agreement."

To that end, Putin yesterday said for the first time that he was willing to conduct bilateral ceasefire talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "However," NBC News reports, "there is little evidence Putin has moved away from his core war goals: cementing his land grabs in Ukraine and stopping the country from joining NATO."

The latest offer from the Trump administration would give Putin much of what he wanted from the outset of his invasion – including, the Washington Post reports, US recognition of Russia's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region, followed by the lifting of US sanctions on Russia. "The only thing they seem to be allowed is to keep their army," a State Department official says of Ukraine. Even before the latest round of talks in London got underway, Trump officials were reportedly "engaged in a concerted effort to undo initiatives aimed at holding Russia and its leaders and allies accountable for alleged war crimes in Ukraine." So Ukraine has little choice but to participate in the US-led talks, even though Trump and his cronies have stacked the deck in Putin's favor.

"There is a lot of pressure on Kyiv right now to give up on things so Trump can claim victory," one European official tells the Financial Times. But if Putin can't be trusted to honor his own unilateral Easter ceasefire, how can he be trusted to honor the terms of any supposed long-term deal with Ukraine brokered by team Trump? The fix, it seems, is in.

Trumpocalypse: In Another Confusing Reversal on the Economy, Trump Says He Won't Try to Fire Fed Chair

  • Trump Unlikely to Back Tax Hike on Millionaires, Despite Some Advisers Saying It Would 'Destroy the Democrats' The grotesque Steve Bannon has been among those pushing for a token tax increase on the moderately rich, arguing that it "guts the AOC-Bernie 'oligarchy tour.'" via the Washington Post and Politico.
  • Surprise! Companies with GOP Connections Are Scoring Carveouts from Trump's Tariffs Meanwhile, "Trump's return to Washington lit a new fire under an already-hot lobbying market, but no firms experienced a bigger boon in the first quarter than those with close ties to the president." via ProPublica and Politico.
  • Pete Hegseth Copied Secret War Plans From Secure Government Network Before Sharing Them with His Wife, His Brother, and Other Randos "Everyone knows he's a joke," one Capitol Hill source says; a source close to Trump says he "always expresses support for his team — right until he doesn't and you read about it in the tweet the next day." via NBC News, Politico, and the Washington Post.
  • Marco Rubio Plans to Gut the State Department and Purge 'Radical Political Ideology' "On its face, this new reorganization plan raises grave concerns that the United States will no longer have either the capacity or capability to exert U.S. global leadership, achieve critical national security objectives, stand up to our adversaries, save lives, and promote democratic values,” Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said." via the Washington Post and HuffPost.
  • RFK Jr. Declares That 'Sugar Is Poison' While Undercutting Covid Vaccinations and Building Database of Autistic People "Critics of Mr. Kennedy say that while his goal of making the food supply healthier is laudable, the cuts he is making to scientific research grants, coupled with significant staff reductions at agencies like the F.D.A. and the National Institutes for Health, will hinder his efforts." via the New York Times, HuffPost, Politico, and CBS News.
  • Justice Department Prosecutors in Eric Adams Corruption Case Resign, Citing Illegal and Unethical Orders Trump's puppet New York City mayor, meanwhile, hosted a chummy press conference with deportation czar Tom Homan. via the Washington Post and Politico.
  • Head Producer of '60 Minutes' Resigns as CBS and Paramount Cave to Trump Pressure "It's clear the company is done with me," executive producer Bill Owens told staff in an emotional goodbye this week. via the New York Times.
  • More Federal Judges Line Up Against Disappearing Innocent People to El Salvador Torture Prisons House Democrats have sent delegations to Louisiana and El Salvador in an effort to draw attention to the cases of wrongly deported people like Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, Harvard scientist Kseniia Petrova, and Maryland father Kilmar Abrego García. via the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and Politico.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Indian Police Say Separatist Militants Killed at Least 26 Tourists in Kashmir The shootings at a resort, which have not been claimed by any militant group, "coincided with the visit to India of US Vice President JD Vance, who called it a 'devastating terrorist attack.'" via NBC News and BBC News.
  • Supreme Court Conservative Majority Prepares to Side with Reactionary Parents Who Object to Public Schools Teaching That LGBTQ People Exist "Only two liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson — seemed to fully embrace the school system's claim that exposure to such ideas did not amount to coercion, and that allowing opt-outs would be unworkable for school officials and potentially lead to troubling outcomes." via the Washington Post and Politico.
  • Wildfires Torch New Jersey's Pine Barrens, Thousands Evacuated A severe drought has increased the fire risk across South Jersey. via the New York Times and the Asbury Park Press.
  • Goons Who Dragged Idaho Woman Out of GOP Town Hall Criminally Charged; She Sues Sheriff for $5 Million Former Democratic candidate Teresa Borrenpohl was initially cited for battery by Kootenai County Sheriff Robert Norris — "her tort claim alleges the guards pinned her to the floor and she bit a guard's hand when he placed it near her mouth — but the city attorney dropped the charge.". via the Washington Post and Rolling Stone.

SOME NUMBER

71 percent

That's how much Tesla's profits fell in the first three months of this year, the Wall Street Journal reports. New polling shows that half of the American public has a negative view of the nonunion carmaker and its Nazi-saluting oligarch owner and CEO, Elon Musk, who says he will step back from his role in the Trump administration to focus on his failing car company. One Tesla Takedown organizer tells the Washington Post that the "grassroots pressure is beginning to hit Tesla where it hurts — the company’s bottom line."

ON THE SHOW TODAY

4/23: It's Hump Day! Today's guest is Merici Vinton, a former worker at the US Digital Service, IRS, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She's an original architect of Direct File, the free tax filing project at the IRS.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

Tim Pool Struggles Asking Questions at WH Press Briefing

You've heard of fake news, but have you heard about poseur journalism?

Nancy Mace's Desperate Clout Chasing Hits New Low During Unhinged Public Meltdown

This interaction pretty much sums up the national mood.

PARTING WORDS

"You're already now seeing children die [of whooping cough] in states where you haven't had a child death in years. For the same reasons we're going backward with measles, we're going backward with pertussis."

-- Paul Offit, an infectious-diseases physician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and director of its vaccine education center, speaking to the Washington Post about how antivax beliefs have led whooping cough cases to more than double in the US this year. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the measles outbreak in the Southwest "now constitutes the largest single outbreak since the United States declared the disease eliminated in 2000."

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