It was a day of shifting narratives as media outlets, their pundits, and even the mapmakers began to cautiously explore a notion that was scoffed at in the days immediately before Russia invaded Ukraine: Could Russia lose? Not just face economic and diplomatic isolation, but suffer an on-the-ground military loss?

It’s no longer unthinkable, though the situation in Ukraine is far too unstable to presume it to be the most likely end scenario.

The Washington Post and CBS just broke a bombshell of a story: a series of text messages sent between Ginni Thomas, spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and then-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows from early November 2020 to mid-January 2021, in which conservative activist Thomas urged Meadows to keep up efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. CNN broke the story that the Jan.

Shortly after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began, the Ukrainian military itself began to change. In part, that’s because Ukraine called up hundreds of thousands of people who were in the reserves or part of the territorial defense forces—something like our National Guard. Ukrainians also began to volunteer for service in large numbers, including Ukrainian women.

Donald Trump’s crew just gets messier and messier. In the most recent incident of embarrassing Trump minion moments, former Trump campaign chair in 2016 Paul Manafort was removed from a plane in Miami on Sunday for carrying a revoked passport, officials said Wednesday. Miami-Dade Police Department Detective Alvaro Zabaleta confirmed to The Associated Press that Manafort had been removed from an Emirates Airline flight to Dubai on Sunday night.

“His U.S.

The GOP is no longer a serious political party. It’s a vaudeville show, and all they care about these days is performing. Not performing good deeds, mind you. Just performing. And the top clowns were all feeling their oats on Wednesday. 

Whether he’s concocting ad hoc reasons for flying to Cancun during a deadly deep freeze or insisting there really is candy in the back of his windowless white van, it’s safe to say that Sen. Ted Cruz can rarely be trusted.

Reports of successful Ukrainian offensives continued today, potentially putting Russian supply lines both northeast and northwest of Kyiv in significant jeopardy. Russian forces, meanwhile, continue to show little skill in responding to such threats—and indeed, even continue to focus what little air power they are willing to risk on bombing less-protected civilian areas to the south while avoiding military-to-military engagement.

NBC’s Richard Engel got an unclassified look at the status map at a Ukrainian headquarters. Click the link for the full video, but here’s a screenshot of the map itself: 

For all the talk about Ukraine encircling the Russian spearhead at Bucha, northwest of the city, it’s actually the northeastern side of Kyiv where counter-attacks are having the most success.

Donald Trump’s Hitler Goof rallies have been drawing less and less interest lately, in part because windmill cancer has tragically taken so many of his rural devotees and also because Fox News no longer sees any benefit to broadcasting them. And why would they? His shtick never changes. It’s like watching a throng of mutant space orangutans break into a flash-orgy on the veranda of your local Olive Garden.

MacKenzie Scott is worth billions, but she’s not trying to keep it. Unlike most rich folks, she’s generously giving the bulk of it away to worthy causes. 

A Tuesday announcement revealed that Scott donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity International and 84 of its U.S. affiliates.

This story was originally published at Prism. 

Marie “Mama” Nan Nfor has not seen her husband since 2018. Her husband, prominent Cameroonian revolutionary Nfor Ngala Nfor, has been imprisoned in Cameroon since 2018 as part of the “Nera 10,” a group of 10 Anglophone leaders who were abducted during the first year of the civil war.