“WNBA player Brittney Griner is being detained in Russia after customs officials said they found hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow in February,” ESPN reports.
The Russians released a video of a traveler at the airport who appeared to be Griner going through security.
“Allied governments have been discussing how to secure the line of succession in Ukraine in the event President Volodymyr Zelensky is captured or killed by Russian forces,“ the New York Times reports.
“The concerns are primarily about making sure there is still an independent Ukrainian government in some form, even if Russia finds a way to install a puppet leadership in Kyiv, the capital. Having an independent leader to recognize, Western officials said, will help prevent any Russian-backed leaders from gaining legitimacy.”
Washington Post: U.S. and allies quietly prepare for a Ukrainian government-in-exile and a long insurgency.
Dan Balz: “Donald Trump’s future is playing out in three venues: the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, the judicial system and the broader political arena.”
“The first two are intriguing — the prospect of the former president being charged with a crime for the effect of his lies about the 2020 election. The third, however, is the most important, with the voters having the loudest voice.”
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“Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) said that he plans to veto legislation passed Friday that would ban transgender student-athletes from competing in girls sports,” the AP reports.
“Without his support, Utah is unlikely to join the 11 states, all Republican-led, that have recently enacted bans on transgender girls wanting to compete in school sports leagues that correspond with their gender identity.”
“President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine spoke with more than 300 members of Congress on Saturday, imploring them to ban the importation of Russian oil and to send more jets to his country,“ the New York Times reports.
“The meeting, conducted via Zoom, was the first time Mr. Zelensky had addressed both houses of Congress since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Former national security adviser John Bolton that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin was “waiting” for a possible United States withdrawal from NATO, claiming former President Donald Trump would have likely made such a move had he been reelected, The Hill reports.
“Russia’s national airline, Aeroflot, has cancelled nearly all international flights from 8 March, because of what it called ‘additional circumstances’ impeding its operations,” the BBC reports.
“Domestic routes and flights to neighbouring Belarus will continue unchanged.”
Italian police seized two yachts belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarchs who had their boats docked along the Italian Riviera, La Stampa reports.
“Donald Trump was aware long before he took the stage at the ‘Save America’ rally on 6 January that he would not march to the Capitol to protest the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win, according to his White House private schedule from that day,” The Guardian reports.
“The former president started his nearly 75-minute long speech at the Ellipse by saying he would go with the crowd to the Capitol, and then repeated that promise when he said he would walk with them down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol.”
“But Trump’s private schedule – released by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack in a filing on Wednesday – shows Trump must have known that there were no plans for him to join such a march, and that he was being taken back to the White House.”
“The number of Texas residents who traveled out-of-state to access abortion care increased dramatically after the most restrictive abortion ban in the U.S. went into effect in the state in September,” Axios reports.
“Newly released data shows that Planned Parenthood health centers in Texas’ surrounding states saw a nearly 800% increase in abortion patients from Texas between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31, 2021.”
“Biden administration officials pressured some Democratic senators not to support bipartisan legislation by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) that would ban oil and gas imports from Russia,” Axios reports.
“The quiet lobbying campaign reveals a White House intent on preserving President Biden’s authority to decide what costs to impose on Russia for invading Ukraine — and on what timetable.”
New York Times: “Much as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 set off a tumultuous cascade of changes across Europe, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the West to a comparable, if far more ominous, historical reckoning.”
“The shock of Russia’s invasion led Germany to discard six decades of military-averse policy rooted in its own wartime experience. Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the Germans would ship Ukraine 1,000 shoulder-launched antitank rockets, 500 surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 2,700 Soviet-era shoulder-fired missiles — as well as embark on a mammoth, $110 billion rearming program at home.”
“It led the once-divided European Union to unite behind choking sanctions that will ban Russia’s central bank, which holds Mr. Putin’s war chest, from selling any assets to European banks. Brussels, long derided as an economic giant but a foreign-policy dwarf, pledged to spend $500 million on defensive weapons for Ukraine.”
George Will: “Floundering in his attempts to wield political power while lacking a political office, Donald Trump looks increasingly like a stray orange hair to be flicked off the nation’s sleeve.”
“His residual power, which he must use or lose, is to influence his party’s selection of candidates for state and federal offices. This is, however, perilous because he has the power of influence only if he is perceived to have it. That perception will dissipate if his interventions in Republican primaries continue to be unimpressive.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the BBC that he is convinced Ukraine can win its war with Russia.
Said Blinken: “If it’s the intention of Moscow to try somehow to topple the government and install its own puppet regime, 45 million Ukrainians are going to reject that one way or the other.”
“Iran agreed to provide international atomic monitors with documents that will help resolve a contentious investigation, paving the way for a broader nuclear agreement with world powers and a potential return of Iranian oil to global markets by the third quarter,” Bloomberg reports.
“China is committed to ‘resolving the Taiwan question in the new era,’ it said in its annual government report issued Saturday, using sharper wording than in previous such reports amid debate among foreign-policy experts over whether Beijing would attempt a takeover of the self-ruled island similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” the Washington Post reports.
“Beijing’s annual work report traditionally includes a couple of paragraphs declaring that the government will continue working toward the unification of Taiwan. This is the first year since President Xi Jinping came to power a decade ago that this section of the annual report includes a time frame — ‘in the new era’ — although it’s unclear how long a period this means.”
“North Korea on Saturday fired a ballistic missile into the sea, according to its neighbors’ militaries, extending Pyongyang’s streak of weapons tests this year amid a prolonged freeze in nuclear negotiations with the United States,” the AP reports.
Former Vice President Mike Pence rebuked those in the Republican Party who have praised Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks, including most prominently former President Donald Trump, The Hill reports.
Said Pence: “There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin. There is only room for champions of freedom.”
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.
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