Yesterday 30 members of the House Progressive Caucus signed a letter urging President Biden to pursue direct negotiations with Russia and a diplomatic settlement to the Russo-Ukraine war. Given the fairly united support for Ukraine in the U.S. political class and fairly broad support among the public in general, the letter was bound to spur some controversy. But the letter itself was an incoherent mass of contradictions. It pressed for immediate negotiations and a ceasefire while also insisting on defending Ukraine and not taking any steps without Ukraine’s support. For the moment at least these are irreconcilable positions. Ukraine’s war aim is to drive Russia from most and likely all of its territory. Russia’s position is to annex large parts of Ukraine and force it into a permanently subordinate position to Russia. One side or another has to substantially shift its demands or there’s little to talk about. The letter could have said, “The threat of escalation and the danger to the global economy is so great that the U.S. needs to make Ukraine shift its goals.” But it didn’t. It stated two irreconcilable positions at once.

Then things got weird.

I’ve got a lot of stories I’m following at the moment. But I want to make sure you’re paying attention to the voter harassment situation in Arizona. I’m sure this is playing out in other states too. It simply may be more aggressive in Arizona or just as likely there’s better local press coverage. The reporting I’m following is from Nicole Grigg and Garrett Archer of ABC15 in Phoenix. Here’s Grigg’s report from Friday.

The gist of what’s happening is this.

These are anxious days for the Democrats’ electoral prospects. But I wanted to focus your attention on the Senate race in Ohio. I still think JD Vance is the likely winner of this race simply because there appears to be a late Republican tide in this cycle and because Ohio is just a Republican state. If it’s basically tied you have to imagine it is more likely than not that the substantial number of undecided voters break in the GOP direction. But that said, it is remarkable how close this race remains. Even as other Senate races have seen sizable Democratic margins drop to tiny leads or tied races, this one really has barely budged. Just over the last 24 hours there are two premium polls out from Marist and Siena which have the race at Vance +1 and tied, respectively.

Rishi Sunak will now be the next leader of the Conservative Party in the UK and the next Prime Minister, starting in just a few days. In a way, I guess it’s a positive that this has gotten so relatively little mention. But I cannot not note the history his ascension brings with it. I saw one reference this morning to Sunak’s being the first “person of color” to be the British Prime Minister. But this somewhat understates the matter.

As a strong GOP midterm showing looks more plausible, there are more and more threats and claims that Republicans will impeach President Biden or perhaps the DHS secretary or — who knows? — maybe everyone. I see people looking at this the wrong way. Who cares? Really, who cares? I do not care. Over the last quarter century Republicans have drained impeachment of any meaning or taint – first by impeaching a President over a triviality and then twice summarily dismissing an impeachment trial over grave presidential wrongdoing. People tell me that even if Biden would never be removed from office it still somehow taints his presidency. I disagree. And it is wrong to make it something Republicans somehow gain by, even if that gain is merely the psychic injury it imposes on their political opponents. The proper response to any threats about impeaching Biden or any of his appointees is to remind Republicans to definitely be sure to get a 67-seat majority in the Senate. Because otherwise, have at it and who cares?

If you’re of a certain age you likely remember the Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native American actress who Marlon Brando chose to receive and ultimately refuse on his behalf the Oscar he won for his appearance in The Godfather. She died earlier this month at age 75. Her appearance at the Oscars in 1973 was the scene of immense controversy at the time and the Academy actually issued a formal apology to her shortly before her death. This morning I read this column in The San Francisco Chronicle which claims that her entire life story of Native American ancestry (specifically White Mountain Apache and Yaqui) was fabricated.

Militia types in tactical gear monitoring ballot drop off boxes to make sure nothing seems fraudy to them.

A rather amazing column by the Post’s Dana Milbank about the situation in Nevada outside of Las Vegas. All the Big Lie stuff you’d imagine. But just a complete gutting of the officials who’ve administered elections for decades and replacing them with conspiracy theorists who at best simply have no experience administering elections. In other words, chaos by design if not always strictly by intention which further makes elections into a circus and gives GOP officials their opening to simply step in and declare winners because the elections have been too chaotic.

It’s quite difficult to see from the business press whether Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is about to go through or not. But if it does it will be critical to look closely at the identities of the foreign and sovereign wealth fund investors who are behind his purchase.

There are good arguments that Musk is purchasing it at as much as four times its actual value. Before he expressed interest in the purchase it was trading at little more than half the agreed purchase price. Put it yet another way, Musk is buying Twitter for almost 50x EBITDA. That happens in the hockey stick world of tech sometimes. But Twitter is not an early stage company.

Yesterday it was reported that Musk plans to cut some 75% of the workforce and radically scale back content moderation. That may be music to some people’s ears for ideological reasons. And it certainly may cut costs. But it won’t be good news at all for any plausible path toward making Twitter profitable or growing its value in a way that makes a successful exit possible.

We’ve got a lot going on today. But I want to be sure you see this report from the Post. Many of the documents retrieved from Trump’s personal residence at his villa and in public storage areas contained highly, highly classified documents about Iran’s ballistic missile program as well reports from intelligence programs about China. It’s hard to overstate just how sensitive and highly guarded these documents are.

The Post notes that “many of the more sensitive documents Trump or his aides apparently took to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House are top-level analysis papers that do not contain sources’ names.” But a foreign intelligence service can often infer based on the nature and findings of an intelligence effort who was talking or which vulnerabilities were being exploited.