I recommend reading Josh Kovensky’s run-down on Russian threats to expand the Ukraine War to the breakaway region of Transnistria. To understand just what this is about you have to have a grip on the geography. So I’m going to momentarily focus on that. But I do so to illustrate a larger point about the state of the Ukraine war.

To start off, Transnistria is another of those breakaway separatist statelets which is recognized by Russia and basically no one else. It’s part of Moldova, another former Soviet successor state couched, landlocked, between Ukraine and Romania. Transnistria is a stretched-out slice of land along Moldova’s border to Ukraine, which is to the east. So to situate ourselves in some ways it mirrors the separatist statelets Russia sponsored along the Russian border in eastern Ukraine. Only in this case the separatist statelet in the eastern part of Moldova borders not Russia but Ukraine.

From TPM Reader MB …

“all so that moderate Dems. would have something – anything – to show voters that they deserve to hold onto power.”

This illustrates the reasons for paralysis perfectly.  The party is frozen because there are people vying for control who have wildly different calibrations, perceptions and expectations.  The above quote just completely ignores and dismisses the idea that BIF is something everyone in the party, progressives included, should be able to celebrate and claim credit for (so long as they voted for it, but we’ll get to that).  It’s a victory.  It’s going to help people and our economy.  It is a measurable social good and a demonstrable benefit to society.  Sure, it’s not a unicorn…maybe even looks a little more mule than horse…but it’s still a positive thing. 

The guy’s got a point.

In what is seemingly a move to troll Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration’s latest effort to censor school children from non-existent “prohibited” material for no discernible reason, a Florida man and atheist activist recently asked some of the state’s largest school districts to ban the Bible from public schools, citing age inappropriate content.