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Today’s edition of quick hits.
* He’s right to be concerned: “President Biden says he’s worried that Republicans may cut aid to Ukraine if they win back the House. ... ‘I am worried,’ Biden said Thursday when asked about the possibility that House Republicans would block or cut aid to Ukraine.”
* In related news: “The Ukrainian military has a window of opportunity to make gains against Russia’s army over the next six weeks, according to American intelligence assessments, if it can continue its push in the south and the northeast before muddy ground and cloud cover force the opposing armies to pause and regroup.”
* Sanctions: “Britain and the European Union imposed a fresh round of sanctions aimed at Iran on Thursday, this time over providing drones that Russia has used to strike battlefields and civilian targets in Ukraine.”
* Seriously? “A Russian fighter jet ‘released a missile’ in the vicinity of an unarmed British surveillance plane, the U.K.’s defense minister said Thursday. Ben Wallace told lawmakers in the Houses of Parliament that the incident occurred in ‘international airspace over the Black Sea’ on Sept. 29.”
* A cynic might wonder if Team DeSantis doesn’t want the public to see all the facts before Election Day: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration this week pushed back against a lawsuit seeking the immediate release of all records related to the flights of migrants from Texas to Massachusetts but agreed to provide them no later than Dec. 1.”
* The Justice Department needs funding: “The Biden administration says it is in critical need of more money to bring the Jan. 6 rioters to justice. But it’s not clear Congress will grant that request in a major funding bill planned for December. And if it fails to do so before the new year, a potential Republican-led House could imperil the resources they need.”
* The latest example of conservative domination on the 5th Circuit will be appealed: “A federal appeals court found the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded through an unconstitutional method, a ruling that threw out the agency’s regulation on payday lenders and struck a blow against how the agency operates.”
* I’ll look forward to hearing more about what he said: “Former President Donald Trump answered questions under oath Wednesday in a defamation lawsuit brought by a writer who alleges he raped her in the mid-1990s. Roberta Kaplan, an attorney for E. Jean Carroll, who was a longtime columnist for Elle magazine, confirmed that Trump was deposed Wednesday.”
* Economic policy can sometimes be ironic: “Democrats pushed through climate change legislation this year that earmarked tens of billions of dollars to create a U.S. supply chain for electric vehicles. Republicans and the states they represent are poised to cash in on much of the political and economic windfall. For Republican members of Congress, none of whom voted for the climate law, it’s the best of both worlds. They can call the spending wasteful, while benefiting politically from the jobs and money that car and battery factories bring to their districts.”
See you tomorrow.