Meanwhile, way on the other side of the spectrum from today’s lead story, the president of the United States was getting back to the business of propagating the Putin-authored conspiracy theories we were just repeatedly warned about. Newshour: Trump doubles down on debunked Ukraine conspiracy theory. That’s probably not surprising. Less so is that Trump came up with some lies to further smear Marie Yovanovitch and suggested he was told “she’s a woman – we have to be nice.” Here’s the latest from the impeach pit from CNN.

+ And no, none of this was the worst thing he said this week. “These are the three most infamous politicians to describe opponents as human scum: Hitler. Stalin. Trump.” If you missed it yesterday, please read/share my take: On Human Scum…and when enough is enough.

+ “While they were playing with our aid, I wonder, did they know we were dying out here?” Buzzfeed with a perspective on the story from the Ukrainian front line: Dying For Help.