Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Putin makes matters worse again: “Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the biggest annexation of territory in postwar Europe on Friday, claiming control over swaths of Ukraine in defiance of international law and in spite of his forces facing another significant battlefield setback.”
* In Ukraine: “President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he was submitting his country’s formal application to join NATO, the Western military alliance Putin has framed his war as a struggle against.”
* In related news: “After delivering remarks on recovery efforts in Florida, President Biden sent a direct message to Russian President Vladimir Putin and doubled down on his commitment to protect ‘every inch’ of NATO territory. ‘Mr. Putin, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying,’ Biden said. ‘Every inch.’”
* The latest from South Carolina: “Hurricane Ian came ashore near Georgetown, South Carolina, on Friday afternoon, knocking out power to more than 180,000 customers 20 minutes after landfall. Ian reached land at 2:05 p.m. as a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.”
* SCOTUS news: “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson received her official commission to the Supreme Court on Friday, in a tradition-laden ceremony that welcomed the court’s first African American woman. Jackson, 52, has been on the job since late June. But the investiture ceremony marked the first time she has taken her place on the mahogany bench, in the newest justice’s traditional spot at the far left of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.”
* The suspected gunmen have been arrested: “Two unauthorized migrants were shot, one of them fatally, by two men in a pickup truck that approached them as they walked along a roadway in West Texas, according to court documents filed on Thursday.” * A familiar name for Rachel Maddow Show viewers: “One of the most prominent of Russia’s oligarchs, Oleg V. Deripaska, and two of his associates were charged with conspiring to violate sanctions imposed by the United States, including by arranging for his girlfriend to travel to America to give birth so that their children would have U.S. citizenship, federal prosecutors said on Thursday.” * Quite a story: “A Maryland doctor and her spouse, a U.S. Army doctor, were arrested on Thursday and charged with plotting to give the Russian government medical records of members of the American military, believing that the information could be exploited by the Kremlin, federal prosecutors said.” Have a safe weekend.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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