World leaders focus on how to punish Russia over Ukraine  —  BRUSSELS (AP) — With the smell of war in the air over Europe, world leaders got over the shock of Russian President Vladimir Putin's order to deploy troops to separatist regions of eastern Ukraine and they are focused on producing as forceful a reaction as possible.

Putin's Endgame: Unravel the Post-Cold War Agreements That Humiliated Russia  —  Moscow's military forces threaten Ukraine, but the bigger prize is restoration of Russia's sphere of influence stretching through Eastern Europe  —  The world's attention is on eastern Ukraine, where Moscow's forces circle.

Rick Scott pushes own GOP agenda as McConnell holds off  —  Senate Republican leaders have no plans to release an alternative agenda as they try to win back the majority this fall.  So Rick Scott is pursuing his own plan.  —  The Florida Republican senator is devising a conservative blueprint …

San Francisco Shows Democrats Have a Seismic Challenge Ahead  —  The political earthquake that just occurred in San Francisco should be a dire warning to the national Democratic Party, because the same fault line stretches across the country and the tremors are only increasing.

Supreme Court turns away Trump's appeal in dispute with House Jan. 6 panel  —  The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away an appeal by former President Trump in his dispute with congressional investigators who have sought access to Trump-era records as part of a House panel's investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas  —  The Supreme Court justice and his wife battled for years for a more conservative America.  New reporting shows how far she was willing to go after Donald Trump's 2020 election loss.  —  The call to action was titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?”

When Boring People Turn Dangerous: Canada's Insane Power Grab  —  The Canadian government's decision to freeze bank accounts in the trucker protests is a mad leap toward bureaucratic dystopia  —  On Christmas Eve, 2018, New York Times writer Andrew Ross Sorkin published, “How Banks Unwittingly Finance Mass Shootings.”

The Air Force Went Woke, Its Planes Won't Fly  —  Diversity was supposed to improve military readiness.  It didn't.  —  Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Bob Beckel, former co-host of ‘The Five,’ dead at 73  —  The Democratic strategist was a founding co-host of the long-running Fox News show  —  Sean Hannity reflects on the life of Bob Beckel  —  Bob Beckel, a Democratic strategist and former co-host of “The Five,” has died at age 73.

Democrats tune out national news during Biden era  —  A new poll from Gallup and the Knight Foundation finds that younger Democrats are driving a huge decline in national news consumption in the U.S.  —  Why it matters: It marks the first time since the study began in early 2018 …

Canadian truckers' COVID ‘freedom’ fight is absurd next to Ukraine's struggle with Russia  —  Canadian truckers are fighting for the right to shun a lifesaving vaccine while Ukrainians are fighting for their lives. … There's nothing like a real crisis to expose the folly of one that's fake …