I want to return to this issue of the Ukraine letter that the Congressional Progressive Caucus released and then hastily disavowed. This can seem like an insider story with a mix of staff-member disagreements, endangered leadership ambitions and just some old-fashioned whodunnit. We’re not at all above covering those stories. But there are some really important issues at play beneath the superficial controversies.

One close to dominant view of this is that the letter itself wasn’t very controversial. It was just ill-timed (right before the election, after on-going Ukrainian battlefield successes), poorly managed and the Washington Post article that broke the story portrayed it as a break with administration policy when it really wasn’t. (Here’s one good overview of the whole controversy.)

There’s a bit of truth to this. But I think it’s basically wrong. The overview I linked to above says it’s an example of how constricted the current policy debate about Ukraine is. Again, I think that’s wrong. We’ll come back to that in a moment.

We are now cast into that antic final period before an election where a raft of strange and outlandish stories suddenly spring up and mostly drop like a stone amidst the ongoing carnival of news. One of those stories popped up earlier this week in Florida when Marco Rubio announced on Twitter that a canvasser for his campaign was viciously beaten by anti-Republican street toughs who told him that Republicans weren’t welcome in their neighborhood. “Last night one of our canvassers wearing my T-shirt and a Desantis hat,” tweeted Rubio, “was brutally attacked by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in #Hialeah #Florida.”

It sounded pretty bad — a canvasser for Rubio’s campaign was beaten badly enough that he had to be taken to a local hospital. But the story has played out a bit differently than might have been expected.

After reports surfaced last week suggesting that the Jan. 6 Committee was struggling to find a lawyer on Trump’s team who was authorized to accept service of a subpoena, team Trump has reportedly been served.

Another woman has come forward alleging that Herschel Walker pressured her to have an abortion after she became pregnant during a longterm extramarital affair with the former football star. This alleged incident occurred in Texas in the 1990s. The woman, who did not show her face during a virtual press conference today, appeared with her lawyer Gloria Allred.

We have fascinating and dangerous news out of Pennsylvania. Republicans in the state’s GOP dominated state legislature have filed articles of impeachment against Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner. If you’re not familiar with the players here, Krasner is one of the country’s most prominent reform DAs – and one of the first to win an election in a major American city back in 2017. Meanwhile there has been a spike in gun violence in the city and the murder rate has risen substantially. Krasner and his supporters argue that these shifts are mirrored across the country and are not a result of his policies. Republican critics and some Democrats disagree.

But here’s where this becomes more than just standard politics.

Election conspiracy theorists and adherents of Trump’s Big Lie are running in races across the country this midterms cycle for high profile, state-level positions that will give them the authority to carry the torch of 2020-esque MAGA election challenges into the future.

HuffPost has a piece up about the Progressives’ Ukraine letter. It matches with our basic assumptions about what happened. They actually confirmed one point I suggested was the case. The letter was being revised over time. The letter as released wasn’t identical to the letter that people signed back in the summer, though from what I can tell the differences were minor and didn’t change the thrust of the document. The reference to the September annexations was added in recent weeks.

The Progressive Caucus has now withdrawn the Ukraine letter in its entirety, saying it was the released by staff without vetting. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting,” writes Pramila Jayapal in a just released statement. “As Chair of the Caucus, I accept responsibility for this.” She goes on to say that the proximity in time to Rep. McCarthy’s threats to discontinue aid to Ukraine led to misunderstandings.

At least two signatories to the Progressive Caucus Ukraine letter have now said that the letter was circulated and signed back in June and July, notwithstanding the fact that it was dated and publicized on October 24th. Rep. Sarah Jacobs says she signed the letter on June 30th. Rep. Mark Pocan says he signed it in July. Both suggest they didn’t know it was going to be released yesterday. Jacobs says she wouldn’t sign it today. Pocan said on Twitter “I agree the timing makes little sense. It was from July.”

I was reading more commentary on this Progressive Caucus letter calling for negotiations to end the Russo-Ukraine war. Some of the criticisms I’ve seen amount to, Putin is terrible. It’s a criminal regime. You can’t negotiate with a regime like that. I completely disagree with that.

Yes, criminal, terrible, all those things. But you have to be willing to negotiate with even the worst regimes. All the more so since this war very much does hold the risk of cataclysmic escalation. If the Russian government were to reach out today to Ukraine or the U.S. and say, we’re ready to withdraw to our own borders, what do we get in return? — that’s the basis of conversation. More realistically, perhaps they would say they want to talk on the basis of a return to the February 24th 2022 front lines. I am not sure that’s an acceptable resolution any more. But it’s at least the basis of discussions.