We’re off to a solid start with our annual TPM membership drive. Thank you to everyone who has become a member so far. If you’re on the fence can you make today the day? Maybe you’ve been thinking you would but just take a moment literally right now, click this link, take our your wallet and the whole thing will just take a couple minutes. It means the world to us. And it really sustains this whole operation. Just take that minute right now. Thank you.

I’m scrambling between the Ukraine war, this absurd story of Matt Shea and the Ukrainian “orphans” in Poland and our membership drive (please become a member … it’s important!!!). But for a couple days I’ve been meaning to do a short post on the signs that COVID is coming back. Yep, I don’t mean to bum you out. But yeah. Not necessarily another wave. But a rise off the levels we’ve been relieved to have in recent weeks. One sign of this are increasing signals from wastewater analysis around country. They’ve started tipping higher in most of the country. (If you’re not familiar with this it’s what it sounds like: analysis of sewage for COVID levels. A bit icky, yes, but also a fascinating and incredibly important tool since it’s not dependent on testing levels or behavior or symptoms. It’s a critical early warning system.) Numbers have also been going up rapidly in Europe, which is often a precursor for rises in the United States.

I think we’ll have more on this today. But because I was hunting around on this last night I wanted to give you a quick update because it’s a pretty insane story, intersects with a story we’ve been following on and off for years and is directly tied to the war in Ukraine.

Back about four years ago a state legislator from Washington State got in trouble for writing a plan for the mass killing of liberals in order to usher in a theocracy in the United States. He got booted out of Washington electoral politics for being involved with “domestic terrorism.” So, kind of a problem. Here’s one of our many pieces on disgraced former Rep. Matt Shea from 2018. So this week he showed up in Poland with a few dozen alleged orphans from the besieged city of Mariupol in Ukraine which he planned to bring to America to give away for adoption to American families.

We’re trying to close strong on day two of our annual membership drive. Can you join us? Not just become a member, which we certainly hope you do, but a full member of the two. TPM’s a communal enterprise. Our operation is based on a give and take between journalists and readers, a symbiotic flow of information. So we want you all in. And to help us with that, we really need folks to join. It’s really important. We need more of you. Just click right here. And thank you in advance.

There are a few points I disagree with here. And I think — albeit perhaps indirectly — Joe Biden is very much part of these negotiations, for just the reason TPM Reader PT says: What Russia needs most is relief from sanctions and those are not under the Ukrainian government’s control. There is also a lot of broken glass that won’t be fixed even if all the sanctions were rescinded immediately. Having said all this, if the Ukrainian government said ‘hey we have an agreement that’s good for our country. We need you to drop the sanctions to make it happen,’ I think we’d be hard pressed to say, ‘Sorry, but we’re still too pissed about this.’ And yet the nature of Putin’s government, the depth of its revisionism and more, seems much more menacing than it did a month ago. There’s really no winding back to the clock to December 2021.

Here’s TPM Reader PT

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: The person who’s not involved in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and who ought to be, is Joe Biden.

I say this because a big part of what Russia is going to want out of a settlement with Ukraine is the removal of economic sanctions, which is not subject to Ukraine’s control. Ultimately it’s the free world that Russia needs to convince to relax those sanctions. At this point, Joe Biden is the undisputed leader of the free world. Thus it’s Biden that Putin needs to work with on this.

I’m making my way through your emails, which I thank you for — both for their content and the thoughtfulness you have taken in writing them. This one from TPM Reader AH is idiosyncratic but one thing AH said really resonated with me: “If the goal of journalism is to make the reader less confused, then TPM’s mode of existence contributes to that mission as much as the reporting in the articles.” There are many goals of journalism but it’s difficult for me to think of many that are more important. Indeed, a number of you have told us that what keeps you coming back to TPM is finding that the new big story or crises don’t come as big surprises to you because our journalism and analysis have anticipated them.

From TPM Reader AH …

The domestic U.S. political moment is bound up around the fact that there is near universal support for Ukraine and opposition and antipathy for Russia. And yet, the leader of the Republican Party has been a consistent and obsequious supporter of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin for the last seven years and even up until this month. Indeed, so much that he actually worked with Putin to blackmail the current Ukrainian President who is now the recipient of worldwide and fairly deserved plaudits. I mean, he literally got impeached over it!

Even Trump himself is now rushing to reposition himself from what he was saying only a couple weeks ago when he praised Putin’s genius for annexing Ukrainian territory. In a new interview in The Washington Examiner he says that this new Putin is definitely different from the old Putin who — maybe as recently as two weeks ago? — was so awesome. “I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”

From the Examiner …

“I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,” Trump told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday evening during a wide-ranging telephone interview from Mar-a-Lago, his private social club and political headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida. “I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.”

“I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,” Trump added.“And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”

Thank you to everyone who has joined us so far in this year’s annual membership drive. We just added our hundredth new member for the drive this morning. So we’re off to a solid start for day one. If you’re a new or returning member, thank you! If you’re considering membership, please consider making today the day. Just click right here. It’s very important for our organization. We try to keep reminders and pushing as limited as possible. But don’t let that make you think it’s not really important, critical, to our operation. You can read my broader pitch here in yesterday’s kick off post.

Also thank you for all the thoughtful and insightful responses to the two questions I asked yesterday of existing members. More soon on that front.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says Ukraine and Russia are now discussing “concrete formulations, that are close to agreement.” He says that potential agreement is on the basis of a Ukrainian proposal of neutrality on the model on Sweden or Austria, in which Ukraine forswears NATO membership but has its own military and independent foreign policy and is free to seek EU membership and whatever other ties with other countries it wants. This seems in line with what I mentioned yesterday that President Zelensky appears to have been telegraphing. He’s made a series of statements in recent days saying he’s soured on NATO, that NATO’s never going to accept Ukraine, etc. That may be true as a prognostication and I’m sure he’s not happy about it. But the logic of saying it seems aimed at softening the ground for including non-membership as part of a peace settlement. Take it off the table yourself, accept it through your own agency rather than as a diktat. This part about Zelensky is my interpretation. But I’m pretty confident this is correct. I also suspect these negotiations may be much closer to fruition than people are thinking.

A few other points.

Let me share a few observations on the situation in Ukraine. I’ll put most of this under the fold since I really want you to read the posts below about our membership drive. Please sign up!