One Year Of Resistance Against Russia’s War

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

We’re now one year on from Ukraine beating back a Russian invasion — an act that garnered the country an unheard-of level of bipartisan support in Congress for our era, but also popular support across America. The anniversary was commemorated Friday in news reports and ceremonies across the U.S.

There’s a growing sense of agency which has defined Ukraine’s journey through our politics over the past several years. In 2014, when Russia first invaded and annexed Crimea after what Ukrainians refer to as the “Revolution of Dignity,” the Obama administration all but wrote Ukraine off. The first Trump impeachment was all about Trump’s attempt to rob Ukraine of its agency — forcing it to become a controversial actor in our domestic politics.

The war has transformed America’s relationship with Ukraine, and its people’s heroism and ongoing ability to exceed U.S. government expectations have earned it a new influence in our politics.

But even with the agency that has come from Ukraine’s relative victories, it’s impossible to forget the trauma and despair that the war has left.

One Ukrainian friend of mine spent this past fall on a reporting fellowship in New York City. Her Kyiv apartment at the beginning of the war was down the street from a power station that had been bombed; her husband had stumbled upon armed Russian saboteurs on the first night of the attack.

For this friend, being far away from danger made the terror and loss of the war’s early weeks far more immediate. She had to think about it in a way that could be ignored while in Ukraine, where the Russian threat has, to some extent, become imbued into environment.

Others experience trauma more immediately. I spoke last year with a survivor of the siege of Mariupol who was unable to stop talking about what had happened for two hours once we got on the phone. Her experience sounded like hell on Earth, and I was glad that she got out. But it also seemed that psychologically, she hadn’t left.

I saw more of it this morning at a ceremony at Manhattan’s Bowling Green. There, city officials and representatives of the Ukrainian government and community raised a Ukrainian flag to commemorate the anniversary of the invasion. People brought their own flags and pins and sang the national anthem, but what resonated more than anything else was the despair beneath it all.

More on other news below. Let’s dig in.

— Josh Kovensky

The Pence Embrace

While most Republicans are running screaming from the accusation (and for many, bare statement of fact) that they want to cut Social Security and Medicare, Mike Pence is decidedly not.

As he prepares an expected presidential bid, Pence has been making the media rounds pushing the cuts, sometimes explicitly floating a Social Security privatization scheme similar to George W. Bush’s in 2005 that tanked his approval numbers so badly, he had to abandon it.

Pence will have to set himself apart from his old boss if he runs, and Donald Trump made not touching the programs a policy plank of his 2016 campaign (though he included variations of cuts in all of his budget proposals once in office).  

But it’s a stark splitscreen: Pence warmly embraces the near-universally unpopular cuts, while elected Republicans trip over themselves to deny that they’ve ever even entertained the notion of gutting the programs.

— Kate Riga

A Half Century Of Pain And Questions For Malcolm X’s Family

Malcolm X’s daughters are taking on the government agencies that they believe were responsible for their father’s death.

Attorney Ben Crump held a press conference on Tuesday to provide “formal notice” of a planned wrongful death suit to the City and State of New York, the FBI, and the CIA, as well as other federal agencies. At the event, Crump said several of the slain civil rights leader’s daughters were supporting the suit and that the move was prompted by a recent investigation that resulted in the exoneration of two men who were convicted of killing Malcolm X. That probe, which was conducted with the Manhattan district attorney, found that prosecutors, the FBI, and the New York City Police Department withheld evidence as they allowed the wrong men to spend over 20 years in prison for the crime.

Crump suggested his team has already uncovered new evidence and indicated they believe government agencies were involved in a “conspiracy” related to the assassination.

For TPM’s report on the planned suit, I revisited my 2010 master’s thesis at the Columbia University School of Journalism. That project was focused on Malcolm X’s death and included an interview with one of his daughters, Qubilah Shabazz. My research included details about the slew of law enforcement and military agencies that monitored Malcolm X as well as the clear issues with the investigation into his death.

Along with these details about the government response to Malcolm X and his death, our story touches on the pain his family endured.

Shabazz has rarely spoken to the press and my thesis was never published outside of the University. In our story, you can see how this lawsuit follows decades of pain and lingering questions for Malcolm X’s daughters. You can also read Shabazz’s story of the final week in her father’s life for the first time.

“I have never gotten over it. My father loved me and that was taken from me. My life was a total nightmare after he died,” Shabazz said. 

— Hunter Walker

“It can be argued, periodically, that it’s actually a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise be entitled to receive and need based on growing up in this type of environment.”

That’s Oath Keeper and Alaska state Rep. David Eastman (R) asking if there could be economic benefits to the deaths of abused children during a Monday state House Judiciary Committee hearing.

During the hearing, the Alaska Children’s Trust delivered a policy briefing to legislators outlining statistics that fatal child abuse and neglect can cost the family and broader society an estimated $1.5 million in health care expenses and potential lifetime earnings over time.

Taking cues from that statistic, Eastman used the policy brief to argue that the death of an abused child could be “cost savings” for the government. Just two days later, he was unanimously censured for his remarks, becoming the first and only Alaska legislator to have been censured twice.

Talk about making history.

Head to TPM’s homepage today to read more on this story.

— Emine Yücel 

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