It's Wednesday morning, what do we know?
Biden signs landmark bill into law & Ukraine makes a statement in Crimea
What do we know?
President Joe Biden signed the “Inflation Reduction Act” into law on Tuesday. The landmark bill includes a variety of programs long sought by Democrats, including the largest ever investment to combat climate change. Biden was joined at the signing by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, whose last minute support led to the bill’s passage in the Senate
The New York Times reports former White House Counsel under Trump, Pat Cipollone, and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, were questioned by the FBI in connection with the boxes of sensitive documents Donald Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago. Cipollone and Philbin were appointed as Trump’s representative to the National Archives near the end of Trump’s presidency. The two men are the highest ranking members of the Trump administration to be questioned by the FBI regarded the highly sensitive material
Federal bankruptcy Judge Julie Manning has cleared the way for the defamation lawsuit against Alex Jones to proceed in a Connecticut court. In her ruling, Manning said, “The plaintiffs’ rights to have that process continue in the Connecticut Superior Court should not be disturbed.” Jones' lawyers had attempted to have the defamation suit transferred to the bankruptcy court in Texas. Jones faces at least two other defamation suits brought by parents of victims of the Sandy Hook massacre
Though it’s thus far gone largely unnoticed, the Artemis 1 rocket has been rolled out to its launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center. The Artemis 1 mission will launch NASA’s Orion crew module into space atop its super-massive Space Launch System (SLS). The Artemis 1 mission, which is scheduled to launch no earlier than August 29th, will send the unmanned Orion capsule around the Moon three times before splashing back to Earth in the Pacific Ocean. The Artemis missions will send Americans back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972. According to NASA, the Artemis program will send the first woman and person of color to the Moon. Artemis will also establish a near-permanent presence on the Moon, part of NASA’s plan to get humanity to Mars
If Peter Navarro and Jared Kushner were pitted in a cage match to the death, I’d root for the cage. But there is something satisfying about reading this screed by Navarro about the princeling
What do we know in the Midterms?
As predicted, Liz Cheney lost her bid to become the GOP nominee for the at-large House seat in Wyoming to Trump-backed Harriet Hageman. Cheney becomes the fourth House Republican who voted for Trump’s impeachment to go down to defeat in the 2022 primaries. Four of the remaining six opted for retirement
Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman’s Senate campaign continues to be the most effective and entertaining of 2022
What do we know in Ukraine?
Explosions tore through an ammunition depot in Mayskoye in Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday. Although Ukraine hasn’t explicitly taken credit for the attack, Russia called the explosion an “act of sabotage” and Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on Telegram that Ukrainian forces would continue to “demilitarize'' Crimea, an apparent allusion to the attack. Through anonymous sources, several media outlets have reported that the attack, and a similar one at an airbase in Crimea last week, were carried out by an elite Ukrainian military unit operating behind enemy lines
Russia’s FSB security service issued a statement to TASS, Russia’s state media, saying Ukrainian operative were also responsible for the destruction of six high-voltage transmission towers earlier this month in Kursk, just across the border inside Russia. Such an incursion into Russia suggests Ukrainian capabilities have grown more sophisticated in recent months
As suspected, the first ship to leave Ukraine with grain aboard, the Razoni, appears to have ended up in Syria. Satellite imagery shows the ship in the Syrian port of Tartus. The vessel appears to be next to the port’s grain silos in the images. Syria, an ally of Moscow, has also purchased stolen Ukrainian agricultural products from Russia. Another ship, Brave Commander, left the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi on Tuesday, carrying a humanitarian shipment of grain bound for Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa. The World Food Programme will take delivery of the grain when it arrives and distributed it to areas of Ethiopia where it is badly needed to prevent a food crisis
A satellite image of the Razoni in Tartus
