Check out Mini-memeorandum for simple mobiles or memeorandum Mobile for modern smartphones.
1:15 PM ET, March 31, 2022

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
BBC:
French intelligence chief Vidaud fired over Russian war failings  —  The head of French military intelligence, Gen Eric Vidaud, is losing his job after failing to predict Russia's war in Ukraine, reports say.  —  Seven months after he took on the role, one report said he was blamed for …
RELATED:
Reuters:
Russia drafts 134,500 conscripts but says they won't go to Ukraine  —  President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a decree ordering 134,500 new conscripts into the army as part of Russia's annual spring draft, but the defence ministry said the call-up had nothing to do with the war in Ukraine.
Seth G. Jones / TIME:
What It Will Take For Ukraine To Win the War  —  Jones is senior vice president and director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  His most recent book is Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran, and the Rise of Irregular Warfare.
Alex Horton / Washington Post:
Russian troops near Kyiv, Chernobyl are repositioning, Pentagon says  —  About 20 percent of the Russian forces around Kyiv, and some forces near the Chernobyl nuclear site, are in various stages of moving north away from the capital, the Pentagon said Wednesday, with some personnel crossing into Belarus.
Josh Rogin / Washington Post:
Ukraine needs better air defense systems, not more excuses
Discussion: nationalinterest.org
Wall Street Journal:   The U.S. Sanctions a Russian Oligarch—but Exempts His Companies
Matt Taibbi / TK News:
“Regime Change” Doesn't Work, You Morons
Foreign Policy:
Russia Prepares Destructive Cyberattacks
Discussion: NPR
Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
What explains the suspicious gap in Trump's call log? … From the moment we learned the extent of the 7.5-hour gap in White House records of President Trump's phone calls on Jan. 6, 2021, the question has been: How did this happen?  Could it just be sloppy record-keeping …
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Justice Dept. expands Jan. 6 probe to look at rally prep, financing … The criminal investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has expanded to examine the preparations for the rally that preceded the riot, as the Justice Department aims to determine the full extent of any conspiracy …
New York Times:
Justice Dept. Widens Jan. 6 Inquiry to Range of Pro-Trump Figures
Washington Free Beacon:
Biden Plans Record Oil Reserve Release After Failing Twice To Lower Prices  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The Biden administration is considering releasing up to 180 million barrels of oil over several months from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), four U.S. sources said on Wednesday, as the White House tries to lower fuel prices.
RELATED:
The White House:
FACT SHEET: President Biden's Plan to Respond to Putin's Price Hike at the Pump  —  Americans face rising prices at the pump because of Putin's Price Hike.  Since Putin accelerated his military build-up around Ukraine, gas prices have increased by nearly a dollar per gallon.
Michael D. Shear / New York Times:
Biden Plan Would Release a Million Barrels of Oil a Day From Reserve
Los Angeles Times:
Concerns about Bruce Willis' declining cognitive state swirled around sets in recent years  —  Just days before Bruce Willis was scheduled to turn up on the set of one of his latest action films, the director of the project sent out an urgent request: Make the movie star's part smaller.
David Siders / Politico:
'We've got to stop fooling ourselves': Enthusiasm gap keeps getting worse for Dems  —  At the end of October, Republicans held an 11-percentage-point advantage in voter enthusiasm.  By January, that margin had ticked up to 14 points.  Now, according to the most recent NBC News poll …
RELATED:
Alayna Treene / Axios:
Dems air anxieties after Biden's brutal NBC poll
Discussion: NRCC and IJR
Politico:
Is Ginni Thomas a Trumpworld power player or a gadfly?  It depends on who you ask.  —  When news broke last week that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas had texted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, imploring him to overturn the 2020 election results to keep Donald Trump in power, it sent shockwaves through Washington, D.C.
Discussion: Wall Street Journal
RELATED:
Ian Millhiser / Vox:
Yes, Merrick Garland can prosecute Mark Meadows (and Peter Navarro, and Dan Scavino)
Discussion: Raw Story
David Horowitz / Front Page Magazine:
The Lynching of Justice Clarence Thomas
Discussion: The Daily Beast and Raw Story
Paul Bedard / Washington Examiner:
Scoop: FEC fines DNC and Clinton for Trump dossier hoax  —  The Federal Election Commission has fined the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for lying about the funding of the infamous, and discredited, Russian “dossier” used in a smear attempt against Donald Trump weeks …
RELATED:
Jill Colvin / Associated Press:
DNC, Clinton campaign agree to Steele dossier funding fine
Discussion: JONATHAN TURLEY and Todd Starnes
Philip Bump / Washington Post:
Ivermectin is the signature example of politics trumping health  —  By April 2020, President Donald Trump, elected in part due to his pledge to challenge the Washington establishment, had tired of the pandemic advice being offered by his health experts.  He began feuding directly with Anthony S. Fauci …
RELATED:
Jonathan Edwards / Washington Post:
Daily Wire to make conservative kids' shows to rival ‘woke’ Disney  —  Ben Shapiro grew up loving Disney movies, he told his podcast listeners last week.  The conservative firebrand passed that love on to his kids by taking them to Disneyland as soon as they were old enough — 6 months of age in the Shapiro household.
RELATED:
Karol Markowicz / New York Post:
I'm quitting Disney after seeing it boast about pushing ‘gender theory’
Jo-Ann Mort / New Republic:
“Putin's Regime Is Going to End Very Soon”: The Oligarch Jailed by Putin Speaks  —  There's no name on the front of the nondescript building in Central London's Marylebone neighborhood, known for its preponderance of medical and dental offices.  There's also no visible security at the entrance.
Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, Ground News and Raw Story
Alex Isenstadt / Politico:
Pence rolls out policy platform, staking out new ground separate from Trump  —  Former Vice President Mike Pence is taking another step toward running for the White House in 2024 — and leaning into his split with former President Donald Trump.  —  Pence is releasing a 19-page policy platform …
Jo Yurcaba / NBC News:
Gender-neutral X passports will be available in April  —  U.S. issues first passport with ‘X’ gender designation  —  U.S. citizens will be able to select the gender neutral “X” as a marker on their passport books starting April 11, the State Department said Wednesday.
RELATED:
Associated Press:
Parents of a Marine vet imprisoned in Russia meet with Biden
Natasha Anderson / Daily Mail:
Woke North Carolina medical student who is trans rights activist brags about deliberately injuring patient who mocked her she/her pronoun badge by missing his vein so he had to get jabbed twice  — Kychelle Del Rosario, a fourth-year med student at Wake Forest University allegedly bragged online about intentionally injuring a patient
Anne Applebaum / The Atlantic:
There Is No Liberal World Order  —  In February 1994, in the grand ballroom of the town hall in Hamburg, Germany, the president of Estonia gave a remarkable speech.  Standing before an audience in evening dress, Lennart Meri praised the values of the democratic world that Estonia then aspired to join.
 
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of memeorandum at 1:15 PM ET, March 31, 2022.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 See Also: 
memeorandum: site main
memeorandum River: reverse chronological memeorandum
memeorandum Mobile: for phones
memeorandum Leaderboard: memeorandum's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
memeorandum RSS feed
memeorandum on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Ellie Silverman / Washington Post:
Truck convoy leaves D.C. area after weeks of traffic-snarling protests
CNN:
Trump can't get his Georgia allies to back David Perdue for governor
Washington Post:
Voices from the siege of Mariupol
Judd Legum / Popular Information:
American paper company maintains lucrative business relationship with Russian government
 Earlier Items: 
John Stoehr / The Editorial Board:
Is the Republican Party a hate group? Is there a difference now that it has mainstreamed ‘the great replacement’?
Dennis Romboy / Deseret News:
How does Sen. Mike Lee stack up against Democrat, independent challengers in Senate race?
Andrew Perez / The Lever:
“He Signed A Historic Middle-Class Tax Cut”
Discussion: Inequality.org
Ssumner / TheMoneyIllusion:
100% of excessive inflation is due to bad monetary policy
New York Times:
In Hungary, Viktor Orban Remakes an Election to His Liking
Daniel Summers / The Daily Beast:
Republicans Say ‘Groomer’ to Put a Nice Face on Homophobia
Rebecca Rubin / Variety:
Chris Rock Responds to Will Smith's Oscars Slap at Standup Show: 'I'm Still Kind of Processing What Happened'
CNN:
'He's an embarrassment': Republicans threaten to primary Cawthorn over controversial antics
 

 
From Techmeme:

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta details Llama 3: 8B- and 70B-parameter models, a focus on reducing false refusals, and an upcoming model trained on 15T+ tokens that has 400B+ parameters

David Pierce / The Verge:
Google announces a new Platforms and Devices team overseeing Pixel, Android, Chrome, Photos, and more, to integrate AI across its products, led by Rick Osterloh

Ryan Morrison / Tom's Guide:
Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview

 
Sister Sites:

Techmeme
 Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web
Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page