Squatters have taken over a mansion belonging to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, seizing the property with the intent of it housing Ukrainian refugees whenever they arrive, reports Resist London on Twitter. Cops are posted outside but are reportedly not ordering anyone to leave as the squatters are claiming the place under a proviso of a law called Section 6 – which means that as long as none of them live or sleep at the property they can occupy it in rotating shifts.

Derpaska is a well-known figure to Trump-Russia aficionados as scumbag Paul Manafort was deeply in debt to the oligarch when he took the unpaid job of Trump 2016 campaign manager and began feeding internal voter data to Russian intel sources in order for them to know whom to target with propaganda via social media. Deripaska’s DC mansion, next door to George and Kellyanne Conway’s home, was raided by FBI agents in October 2021 though no further movement by the Department of Justice against the Putin pal has surfaced in the months since. Might be a good place for some DC-area lib protestors to keep warm for Ukrainian refugees too.

Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Procter and Gamble, IBM, and KFC/Pizza Hut owner Yum Brands Inc, among others have been warned by prosecutors their assets in Russia face seizure and employees risk imprisonment if they move ahead with pulling operations from the supposedly capitalist country in response to the unprovoked assault on Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reports.

More than 350 international firms have announced their intent to suspend operations within Russia or permanently pull out since the attack began nearly three weeks ago says the Journal citing an estimate by the Yale School of Management. Putin has signaled he was open to nationalizing the assets left behind by the companies, all but ensuring bootleg МДKDOИДLDS serving turnip burgers and vodka shakes while РОНАЛЬД МДKDOИДLD the friendly clown reminds kids the Nazis who rule Ukraine are being righteously slaughtered to liberate their Russian brethren.

Dr. Oz, now a GOP Senate candidate, had Jazz Jennings, transgender parents, transgender surgeon on his show https://t.co/MRknLS0b2n

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 14, 2022

White House officials have privately told the New York Times that former Soviet Republics Moldova and Georgia may be next on Putin’s shit list after even as the war still rages in Ukraine. Georgia was where Russia attacked in 2008 to “recognize the independence” of a breakaway Russian puppet state called South Ossetia in what some say was a test run for what’s happening in Ukraine now.

The British Ministry of Defense announced that Russia has effectively formed a blockade of all Ukrainian ports in an effort to halt imports into the country.  “Russian naval forces have established a distant blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade,” the MOD tweeted.

A “distant blockade” involves intercepting ships far out of port before they even approach the shoreline.  Any type of blockade is a tactic to try to starve the opponent of supplies needed to keep the defense in place.

As a result of staggering sanctions, the cost of the war in Ukraine and an underperforming economy, the Russian government could intentionally default on its national debt, but economists with the International Monetary Fund said such an act wouldn’t have significant impact on the worldwide economy, Reuters reports.

The exposure of Western banks to loss should Russia default is about $120 billion, a significant amount but not enough to hobble the banks’ operations.  When asked if Russia’s default would cause a panic in worldwide markets, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said simply, “No.”

I just tested positive for COVID. I’ve had a scratchy throat for a couple days, but am feeling fine otherwise. Michelle and I are grateful to be vaccinated and boosted, and she has tested negative.

It’s a reminder to get vaccinated if you haven’t already, even as cases go down.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 13, 2022

These past two months I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands. That time will come. But it’s not now. I love my teammates, and I love my supportive family. They make it all possible. I’m coming back for my 23rd season in Tampa. Unfinished business LFG pic.twitter.com/U0yhRKVKVm

— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) March 13, 2022

Two hours ago, at 5:00 p.m. ET, the Kremlin blocked access to Instagram, cutting off hundreds of Russian “influencers” from their income source, but also preventing citizens from gaining access to information about their government’s invasion of Ukraine, the Washington Post reports.

“The Russian government has decided to block Instagram in Russia, cutting off millions of people from loved ones and friends around the world,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a video response. “We know that over 80 percent of people in Russia on Instagram follow an account from outside of Russia. The situation is terrifying, and we are trying to do all we can to keep people safe.”

The blockade is also in place to prevent Russians from sharing statements of support for Ukraine and undermining the Kremlin.  Sixty million Russians–about 40% of the population–have Instagram accounts.

“So, so I’ll tell ya a c-couple of interesting, just, erm, moments from, from, ah, meeting in my office,” the self-professed orator and Canadian-born Cuban immigrant Senator Ted Cruz (R-Quintana Roo) stammers in describing a meeting with Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, who obviously intimidates Cruz.  “Number one, when she was there, I offered her and everyone there a Cuban coffee, as a, as a, as a Cuban-American, I sometimes when people come to my office, erm, we make Cuban coffee, and she turned down the Cuban coffee, which I gotta say anyone that turns down coffee, I’m highly suspect of.”

US officials have told the Financial Times that Russian leadership have asked their Chinese counterparts for military hardware to aid in its assault on Ukraine, a potentially troubling development and probably true considering everything else American intel publicized panned out.

Whether the ChiComs will oblige is another question, as a high level policy scholar at a Chinese government think tank recently published a piece saying essentially the Putin regime is fucked and the People’s Republic should sever all ties with them within the next week or two.

Comic books are a freaking mess. You know how many times in the pages of DC and Marvel Comics has Peter Parker been bitten by a radioactive spider, have Bruce Wayne’s parents been shot dead in an alleyway, has Baby Kal-El’s spaceship crashed into a field outside Smallville, has Steve Rogers been injected with a super growth serum? We have no idea, but we understand it’s been like, a lot of fucking times for each as all these “reboots” and “retcons” keep happening because its hard to keep a steady continuity for 80+ years of stories that get printed every week.

DC and Marvel maintain this by explaining that their fictional universes are actually multiverses, where “Earth-616” is the main Marvel Comics Universe, Earth-1610 is the “Ultimate Marvel Universe”, “Earth-199999” is the one you see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and TV series, “Earth-One” is DC before the “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, “Earth-Two” is DC also before the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” but before the “Golden Age”, “Earth-Forty-Three” is where Superman is dead and then was replaced by a Kandorian and eventually switched with the Superman of “Earth-215”, then there was something called “Infinite Crisis” and Jesus Christ enough already.

A memo from the Kremlin to its propagandists in state media obtained by Mother Jones shows Russian leadership eager to seize upon every and every opportunity to use American right wing propagandist Tucker Carlson’s justifications for Russia’s attack on Ukraine. “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” says the memo, summing up Tucker’s position: “Russia is only protecting its interests and security.”

“The [Caucasian] Ukrainian refugees have suffered unimaginable [for non-Hispanic white people] horrors,” said white humanitarian advocate for white people Stephen Miller, in the middle of some sob story about the non-white Vice President supposedly making a joke at their expense that no one in the mainstream media picked up because in reality it was innocuous and nobody but obsessive right wingers wasted any time on it since there’s actual news going on to cover.

President Biden’s job approval rating jumped from 41% to 46% week-to-week in the CBS News/YouGov poll, which also found that 59% support NATO imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine. When told that doing so would be an act of war (which it is, make no mistake), that support dropped to 38%. On the question of support for a US military response to a Russian attack on a NATO member, 73% were in favor – which is kind of an academic question because there is no way there wouldn’t be a response. The whole point of NATO is that an attack on one is an attack on all.

Email from the Trump Campaign sent Sunday morning following the Saturday night MAGA rally.

A Russian airstrike on a military base Sunday in Western Ukraine just 15 miles from the border with Poland has killed at least 35 people and wounded 174, Fox News reports. Prior to the Russian assault, the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security training base in Yavoriv had been host to US and other foreign troops regularly engaging in joint exercises with Ukrainian troops. About 30 missiles were fired at the base. Officials were trying to determine if any foreign military personnel were present during the strike, reportedly the westernmost attack by Russia so far.

Appearing on a podcast with Let’s Go [Brandon] cryptocurrency tokens founder James Koutoulas, Donald Trump got quite the overwhelming gift from his suckling:  half a trillion tokens of his fabled cryptocurrency, The Daily Beast reports.

“Sounds good to me!” Trump responded. “I don’t know exactly what it means, but it sounds good to me.”

How much is such an exorbitant gift worth?  At a value of $0.00000009 per token, the LGB haul is worth $45,000 total.  We’ll see if he reports it on his taxes, right?

“And pure unfiltered [unintelligible] coursing through our veins, the beautiful, beautiful blood, red, white and blue.  We will not bend,” future defendant Donald Trump announces to a crowd of regrettable people in South Carolina.

Guy who hated government so much he decided to campaign for office to run it in his state Ammon Bundy has been charged with trespassing after refusing to leave a hospital where a child of a campaign supporter was taken there by police, the Idaho Statesman reports.

The infant at the heart of the issue is reportedly malnourished and had initially been reported to the police when brought into the hospital earlier this month.  After a 3-day hospital stay, the child was discharged to the parents, but in a follow-up exam, hospital staff found the infant had lost more weight.

The parents–one of whom is the child of Diego Rodriguez, a Boise pastor, People’s Rights activist and figure in Bundy’s bid for governor–canceled a follow-up exam scheduled for Friday, with his mother saying she was sick.  Hospital staff could not locate the parents, so they called the police, who located the family at a gas station in a neighboring town, where the family was at a friend’s house for dinner, and took the child into custody Friday.