The plan for Russia’s new offensive in Ukraine is basically the same as the attack plan in February 2022, with troops being ordered to push on Kyiv, the Daily Beast reports, citing an independent news outlet in Russia. “Plans to go for Kyiv again are really being drawn up, but only because the country’s leadership is demanding it. No one believes in the realization of these plans, it will be suicide,” said a source close to Russia’s defense ministry.

• I feel bad for the Chinese balloon.  It travels all the way over to the United States and all it gets to see are flyover states. 
• The first green comet in 50,000 years and Mother Nature gives us four days of overcast skies at night.  For astrophiles, it’s like being alive in 1969 and living in upstate New York but not being at Woodstock because of a flat tire.
• Hey, Republicans, look who the first person to take on Trump in your Party is:  a woman.  The men don’t have the spine to do what needs to be done for the best of the country.  Now, all y’all go on and get hit with a giant asteroid.
• George Santos’s committee assignments lasted less than a Scaramucci. 
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CVII”

Today, I filed a police report with @CapitolPolice and a complaint with @CongressEthics regarding ethical violations and sexual harassment by Congressman George Santos during my time working in his office.

— Derek Myers, Ph.D. (@DerekMyers) February 3, 2023

Derek Myers is the editor-in-chief of the Scioto Valley Guardian, an Ohio online media outlet.  He continues:  “As stated in the filings, my complaint pertains to violations of House Ethics in which I was an unpaid volunteer performing staff duties with the promise of employment and compensation, only to be released after several days of work without compensation.  Additionally, my filings detail sexual harassment I endured in the office of the Congressman. These matters will hopefully be appropriately addressed by the police and the Ethics Committee, respectively in due time.  These matters will not be litigated on social media or through news media. They are serious offenses and the evidence and facts will speak for themselves if the committee takes up the matter. This tweet is being made public in light of transparency.”

“So how do we know what the Chinese have in their balloon?” Fox bro Jesse Watters contemplates before fabricating the next Great Panic which was actually totally predictable.  “This could be a test run for the Chinese.  They float a balloon out there just to see how we react.  If they know Joe freezes at the first sight of a balloon the next balloon might be filled with another virus.  Pop!  Drop what’s all over.  We’re all on ventilators again.  Now how do we know that the next balloon isn’t loaded up with bioweapons.  Just a little seepage over Nebraska, there goes the heartland.

How predictable was the Fox decline into conspiracy theory and fear mongering?  Your humble (?) writer (?) theorized that was the goal of the Chinese effort four hours beforehand.

ABC News reports that Preston Hemphill, the white Memphis Police officer who initially confronted unarmed motorist Tyre Nichols and allegedly pointed a Taser at him, has been fired by the police force.

Virginia Capitol rioter Joshua Dillon Haynes, who pleaded guilty in October to trashing $30,000 and $34,000 worth of CNN camera and broadcasting equipment, among other charges, was sentenced Thursday to 32 months in the federal prison system to be served after the five year state prison sentence he’s currently doing in Virginia for domestic violence, Law and Crime reports.

Haynes, 40, began his sentence last April on the state charges, so by our estimate he’ll be out again in December 2030, give or take, just shy of ten years after he failed to Stop the Steal.

Small-faced dipshit Charlie Kirk’s right wing cult organization Turning Point USA is hosting disgraced former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at an event in Florida on Friday.

Hollywood actor Mark Hamill, most famous for his portrayal of farm boy-turned radical religious fanatic anti-government terrorist Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars film series, told Politico EU on Friday he’s selling a number of autographed movie posters to help raise money for the Ukrainian military to acquire drones to strike back at the Russian stormtroopers attacking the country.

“We decided to sign Star Wars posters, a limited amount. For real hardcore collectors – especially those that have disposable income – you can get way more money… than you would imagine,” said Hamill, who should be noted is selling actual physical collector’s items for a good cause rather than $99 NFTs that only exist digitally to line the pockets of a failed game show host. Despite not having that much of a live-action career outside of Star Wars, Hamill has done more than fine for himself in voice acting and royalties from his image being used on merchandise for over 45 years.

Well northern Maine has finally had its day on National Zero. This has been a long time coming but here it goes: Windchills as low as minus-60 degrees are in the forecast for the region on Saturday according to the National Weather Service. That’s a big deal for northern Maine.

The windchills have already been recorded at minus-58 in Escourt, Maine, a tiny strip of about four or five houses in a row with the Canadian border literally in their front yards. Yeah, things are really happening in northern Maine this weekend. It’s where all the action is at.

The ChiCom spy balloon – which needs a snappy nickname – has floated its way southeastward into the Central United States Pentagon officials said at a press briefing Friday afternoon.

Republican Kansas Senator Roger Marshall tweeted it was over northeastern Kansas, adding that his “staff is in contact with law enforcement officials,” like local sheriffs are going to be able to just pull out their service pistols and shoot the fucker down from 75,000 feet or however high it is.

Yes, we know that when books of a political nature drop, publicists leak juicy bits of information to tease sales, and this is one of those juicy bits that make you ask, “What if…?”  Former Manhattan District Attorney prosecutor Mark F. Pomerantz claims in his new book that while with the prosecutor’s office, he once proposed charging Donald Trump with racketeering based on the number of apparently corrupt operations he was simultaneously heading.

According to the New York Times, Pomerantz writes that then DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. called the idea “bold” but others in the office were not enthusiastic about the idea.  Pomerantz notes that Vance was convinced prosecutors could make a case for financial fraud for manipulating his financial statements, a lesser, more easily provable offense, and an investigation his successor in office, Alvin Bragg, dropped before recently reinvigorating it.

Fearing litigation over the move, Florida state lawmakers will convene in a special session next week to mostly walk back on last years’ revocation of Disney World’s special self-governed Reedy Creek Improvement District in retribution for the company speaking out against Napoleonic Governor Ron DeSantis’s draconian “Don’t Say Gay” law, the Miami Herald reports. The state will restore the district but appoint a state-operated board to oversee it, which we guess won’t actually mean much but is a face-saving move ahead of DeSantis’s expected 2024 presidential campaign launch.

Maybe if the Biden Administration wasn’t so worried about banning your gas stoves, they would have seen this Chinese spy balloon coming.

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 3, 2023

Confederate flag guy Kevin Seefried’s lawyer on Tuesday filed a sentencing memo pleading with the judge to not sentence Seefried to 70 months in the slammer because his colostomy bag – which he was wearing while carrying the stars and bars in the hallway of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 – requires too much cleaning and maintenance than is practical in the federal prison system. As if there are no medical units for disabled inmates and they all just live in general population.

The lawyer also tried the old “hasn’t he already been punished enough?” song-and-dance in the memo, writing “Mr Seefried’s wife has left him, he is headed to prison and he will be destitute when he is released.” Hilariously the wife was also at the riot, but apparently didn’t go inside the Capitol and then ended up leaving him. Seefriedand his son Hunter (lol) were found guilty at a bench trial in October. Hunter already began serving his two year bid while Kevin faces the judge this afternoon.

Not particularly bright House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is concerned the ChiCom spy balloon could be carrying Chinese bioweapons, but doesn’t get into explaining how a balloon floating at an altitude of 100,000 feet would disperse a deadly pathogen. We’re not saying it’s impossible, we would just like to hear Comer take the time to walk through it with his apparently deep experience on the design and capabilities of aerial bioweapons delivery platforms.

The New York County Clerk on Friday confirmed to the Daily Beast that the two checks written to pay the $1.6 million total fine the Trump Organization and the Trump Payroll Corporation were sentenced to pay after being found guilty on nine counts of tax fraud in December did not bounce.

The man suspected in a string of disappearances and murders of animals at the Dallas Zoo – including the theft of two emperor tamarin monkeys – was arrested Thursday at an aquarium, probably while planning some sort of perverted fish heist, the Associated Press reports.

Davion Irvin, 24, was charged with six counts of animal cruelty. Cops nailed Irvin after an employee at the Dallas Aquarium saw the weirdo acting suspiciously near an exhibit. The two monkeys were found and returned to the Dallas Zoo, as was the leopard who escaped through a hole cut in the fence. Irvin has only been connected to the monkey-napping thus far, though more charges are likely pending, particularly in the escape of a leopard and the death of an endangered vulture.

Biden Administration officials tell Bloomberg they’ve decided to postpone next week’s planned Secretary of State Tony Blinken meeting with dictator Xi Jingping after the military announced Thursday it had detected a ChiCom spy balloon, currently floating over Montana.

The ChiComs on Friday apologized and claimed it was a civilian weather research balloon that merely blew off course in an apparent rush to not derail Blinken’s meeting with Xi in Beijing.

Surprising they didn’t just go with “Well, it seems like the new House GOP majority and polling numbers for Ron DeSantis probably gave employers more confidence to add to payrolls” or something like that. Then again it was a short clip. They might’ve spun it toward politics later on.