“The coronavirus may infect tissue within the male genital tract, new research on rhesus macaques shows,” the New York Times reports.
“The finding suggests that symptoms like erectile dysfunction reported by some Covid patients may be caused directly by the virus, not by inflammation or fever that often accompany the disease.”
Dan Pfeiffer: “In the end, the State of the Union is just a speech. The impact is often overstated and the politics over-analyzed. But the speech given by the President last night tells me he and his team understand the cause of their political problems and have a plan to address them.”
“Emmanuel Macron is set to confirm this week that he will be a candidate in next month’s French presidential election, with polls and political commentators suggesting that the war in Ukraine has boosted his status as favorite to win and secure another five-year term,” the Financial Times reports.
“With some rival candidates facing scrutiny over their previous sympathy for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, Macron is benefiting from his prominence in western efforts to deter Russia and resolve the conflict.”
“As Russia’s tanks rolled into Ukraine last week, Vladimir Putin gathered the country’s top businessmen in the Kremlin’s ornate Hall of the Order of St Catherine to discuss their response to the economic shocks that would follow,” the Financial Times reports.
“The Russian president, seated about 20 feet away in a conspicuous social-distancing measure, told them he had ‘no other choice’ but to invade Ukraine — and, if they wanted to keep their businesses, neither did they.”
“But the power dynamic of the meeting made for a much starker message to the assembled billionaires. He warned that anyone who avoided doing business with companies sanctioned by the west would face punishment under the law — implying that the oligarchs had to make a stand — while also stating that Russia would help companies hit by western sanctions.”
“Turkey has denied a request from Russia to sail several naval vessels through the Turkish Straits,” Nikkei Asia reports.
Derek Thompson: “The war in Ukraine is being fought on two battlefields. The first battlefield is geographic. It is the land Russia is tearing up with tank treads and pounding with missiles.”
“The second battlefield is made up not of physical particles, but rather of relationships—contracts and promises between nations, banks, companies, and individuals. This is the economic arena.”
“While Russia holds the military advantage over Ukraine on Battlefield One, it is getting destroyed by a Western alliance on Battlefield Two. In the past few days, the United States and several major European countries have declared a series of financial penalties and sanctions against Russia that are without modern precedent for a major economy. These policies are triggering a financial catastrophe in Russia.”
“Getting a proper grip on the second battlefield requires breaking down the news of the past several days into three categories: the global boycott of Russia, the economic crisis within Russia, and the worldwide ripple effects that we’re already starting to see.”
“Ukravtodor, the state agency in charge of Ukraine’s highways and road signs, is playing a tactical role in slowing down invading Russian troops,” Quartz reports.
“In a string of social media appeals, the group has called on Ukrainian citizens to remove highway signs and mess with markings left for the Russian Armed Forces.”
Thomas Friedman: “I call them ‘the full-blown disaster,’ ‘the dirty compromise’ and ‘salvation.’”
“The disaster scenario is now underway: Unless Vladimir Putin has a change of heart or can be deterred by the West, he appears willing to kill as many people as necessary and destroy as much of Ukraine’s infrastructure as necessary to erase Ukraine as a free independent state and culture and wipe out its leadership. This scenario could lead to war crimes the scale of which has not been seen in Europe since the Nazis — crimes that would make Vladimir Putin, his cronies and Russia as a country all global pariahs.”
“Every day that Putin refuses to stop we get closer to the gates of hell.”
“Vladimir Putin has signed a decree banning Russians from leaving the country with more than $10,000 in foreign currency as fears grow that the Russian financial system is on the brink of collapse,’ the Telegraph reports.
“Experts have warned that banks will struggle to sell assets to stay afloat after sanctions sent markets into freefall this week. The chaos comes after Russia’s central bank was blocked from accessing large chunks of its foreign reserves.”
Rep. Van Taylor (R-TX) allegedly paid $5,000 in hush money to an “ISIS bride” he was engaged in an affair with during his time in Congress, Breitbart News reports.
The story about the married congressman and father of three is quite graphic.
A new CBS News poll finds most Americans who watched President Biden’s first State of the Union address approved of what they heard, and many said it made them feel optimistic and proud.
New York Times: “The mounting toll for Russian troops exposes a potential weakness for the Russian president at a time when he is still claiming, publicly, that he is engaged only in a limited military operation in Ukraine’s separatist east.”
“No one can say with certainty just how many Russian troops have died since last Thursday, when they began what is turning into a long march to Kyiv, the capital. Some Russian units have put down their arms and refused to fight, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Major Ukrainian cities have withstood the onslaught thus far.”
USA Today: “The U.N. General Assembly will vote Wednesday on a resolution demanding that Russia immediately stop using force against Ukraine and withdraw its military from the country, and condemning Moscow’s decision ‘to increase the readiness of its nuclear forces.’”
“E.U. ambassadors agreed on Tuesday to call for an initial assessment of Ukraine’s chances of joining the 27-nation bloc,” Bloomberg reports.
“Democratic challenger Jessica Cisneros, a 28-year-old immigration attorney running for Congress with heavy support from progressives, has forced a primary runoff against U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar in South Texas,” the AP reports.
“Neither candidate Tuesday night got more than 50% of the vote needed to win outright.”
Playbook: “Finally, you could not have watched Biden’s speech without noticing an unusual number of verbal miscues. Sometimes, they happened when he had trouble reading his teleprompter. Other times, they came when he added something that wasn’t in his prepared remarks.”
“We’ve seen various explanations for this. It’s a staple of the Breitbart-Fox-MAGA media complex to suggest, without evidence, that the mistakes are a result of ‘cognitive decline.’ On the other hand, Atlantic writer John Hendrickson argues that some of Biden’s verbal bobbles are an artifact of his childhood stutter — an idea that Biden rejected in a 2020 interview with Hendrickson, but later, during a CNN town hall, suggested was a possibility ‘when I find myself really tired.’ Either way, there were some odd moments Tuesday night.”
New York Times: “Russia’s push to seize key Ukrainian cities accelerated on Wednesday, with the Russian military claiming that its forces were fully in control of Kherson, a port city with a strategically important location near the Black Sea, just northwest of Crimea.”
“The claim could not immediately be verified, and Ukrainian officials said that while the city of about 300,000 people was surrounded, the battle for it was continuing. Kherson would be the first major Ukrainian city captured by Russia since President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion last Thursday.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) looks headed for a primary runoff, the Texas Tribune reports.
“In a field of four candidates, not enough Texas Republican primary voters appear convinced that the two-term incumbent should remain the Republican’s candidate for the job. That could put the embattled attorney general on the defensive in the biggest fight of his political life.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.