Well, it’s Wednesday. Let’s get started.

One: On the Joe Biden–Vladimir Putin Zoom front, it seems that Biden communicated that if Putin moves on Ukraine, the economic price for Putin will be high indeed, starting with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is majority-owned by Gazprom but is not yet completed and would be a major source of oil revenue for Russia if it were. 

It’s a very delicate diplomatic dance for Biden. The bottom line is that he can’t do or say anything that might suck the United States into military support for Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion, because that way lies total madness. And yet he can’t say that, of course, because that gives Putin a green light to push toward Kyiv and overrun a country whose people, polls show, would rather align with the European Union than with Moscow (although Putin’s historic “sphere of influence” claims have validity, too; it’s complicated). And you don’t amass 175,000 troops on a border somewhere just for fun; it costs millions of rubles a day to keep them there. That alone makes some people think the Kremlin might just do this and see what the West does.

Speaking of the West, it has a new look today—Angela Merkel is out in Germany, and Olaf Scholz is in. Liberals everywhere are cheering this, because Scholz is a Social Democrat, so he’s more naturally aligned on economic issues with Biden—he has said, for example, that he’s with Biden on new global taxation rules. But his coalition is wobbly—it’s the Social Democratic Party, or SPD; the Greens; and the right-leaning, libertarianish Free Democratic Party. So he’s got two groupings that want to expand the social safety net in various ways and one that will insist on not paying for it. And this is why democracy is messy. In addition, it’s the SPD, according to this column in today’s Washington Post, who were the biggest German boosters of Nord Stream 2. Sounds like things are going to stay complicated.

Speaking of complicated, and democracy being messy, Mark Meadows changed his mind and said no, he won’t testify to the January 6 committee after all. A source told CNN that Meadows has already provided 6,000 pages of documents to the committee, but this is certainly a blow. Meanwhile, a judge scheduled Steve Bannon’s trial for next July, kind of a long time away: Prosecutors asked for a one-day trial in April, while Bannon’s team asked for … wait for it … a 10-day trial in October. That is, a fascist circus right before the midterms. Because of course he did.

Question: When are the committee and the Justice Department going to start playing hardball here? These people are a threat to democracy. They tried to steal one election, and they’re going to try to steal another. And they’re winning. When are federal marshals going to perp-walk one of these people in front of the cameras in handcuffs and make them sit in a jail cell? 

At NewRepublic.com, Matt Ford looks at why Biden’s commission on the Supreme Court punted on court-packing. Tim Noah highlights Elizabeth Warren’s attempt to shine light on the record profits in, of all things, the rental car industry, which is an oligopoly that has relentlessly jacked up prices since the pandemic—and seen record profits. Molly Osberg asks why, once again, even after the shooting in Oxford, Michigan, gun manufacturers still can’t be held liable for these tragedies. And Jo Livingstone explains, via a review of a new documentary, the love affair between the city of Naples and Diego Maradona.

Solidarity,

Michael Tomasky, editor

Every day, our journalists are exposing the right’s assaults on our democracy—and pushing the Democrats to go bold to preserve the republic. Here’s a special offer from The New Republic so you won’t miss their scoops and sharp analysis.

Yesterday’s question: Today is the eightieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor. This December 7 factoid is largely unknown by Americans, but in fact Japan launched another attack on that day. What other country—actually, colony—did it attack, and why?

Answer: British Malaya, now contained within Malaysia; for the rubber and the tin. Read about it here. Japan also invaded the Philippines and Guam. Pearl Harbor was only a part, albeit a pretty large part, of a massive military assault on no fewer than seven different locations. 

Today’s U.S.–world history question: Most Americans probably don’t know that the United States of America once actually invaded Russia. When, under what president, and why?

Today’s culture question: December 8 is the date on which John Lennon was shot in 1980. This will be easy for people of a certain age, but for those not of that age: Who told America of the shooting that night, and through what venue?