Asked by Trump advisor and Fox host Sean Hannity his impression of the situation in Ukraine, former vice president and man who rice compare the color white to Mike Pence doesn’t take the traditional track of commenting on the actual situation of a possible invasion, restate the US mission of supporting a nascent democracy, or even giving insight into the foreign leaders involved as predecessors would do.   Nooooooooo, Mikey decides to make it political.

“To see the way the Biden Administration has handled Ukraine, is a testament to a historic truth:  that weakness arouses evil.”

Speaking in Russian with a message aimed at the Russian people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Russians to express their displeasure with the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin and push for a drawdown of tensions at the countries’ border, the BBC reports.

Saying that he “unsuccessfully” reach out to Putin for talks to avert a conflict–“I initiated a telephone call with the president of the Russian federation. Result: silence.”–Zelensky noted that the Russian people can reject the Kremlin’s justification for war because they are being lied to.  “Who can stop (the war)?  People.  These people are among you, I am sure.”

Begun in 2018, the Justice Department’s “China Initiative,” a program to counter Chinese economic and military espionage, has been shuttered under criticism that it led to racial profiling of US residents and pulled resources into a myopic national security program, the Washington Post reports.

In announcing the cancelation Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, head of the department’s national security division, said the program targeting China specifically will be replaced by a broader-spectrum national security program that will look at threats from various fronts.

“By picking one country, what the China Initiative did is it created in some ways a bit of a myopic approach, which I don’t think really reflects the nature of the threat landscape,” Olsen said.

The Wake County North Carolina Superior Court District finalized another loss for the bad guys Wednesday, imposing a new map with six safe seats each for Republican and Dems, plus two toss up districts, the New York Times reports. The state GOP had sought to draw a 6R/4D/4 tossup map that was rejected by the state Supreme Court and sent back to the lower circuit earlier this month, now the battle is poised to head to the state’s highest court once again. The butthurt Republican state House Speaker Tom Moore called the Wake court’s decision “nothing short of egregious,” and immediately appealed to the state Supremes for a stay of the new map.

Blue and yellow lights glowed on buildings and landmarks in Berlin and Paris as the Germans and French signaled their solidarity with Ukraine, which is effectively under siege by the Russians, who surround three side of the nation.

Justice Department: “Three men pleaded guilty today to crimes related to conspiring to attack power grids throughout the United States in furtherance of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism advocating for the supremacy of the white race. Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of Katy, Texas and of West Lafayette, Indiana; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin; have each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. ‘According to these pleas, three individuals engaged in a disturbing plot to attack our country’s energy infrastructure, damage the economy, and stoke division in our society, all in the name of white supremacy,’ said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.”

“‘The Justice Department will continue to investigate and disrupt such violent plots, and to hold perpetrators accountable in a courtroom, where the rule of law and the Constitution prevail.’ ‘The defendants in this case wanted to attack regional power substations and expected the damage would lead to economic distress and civil unrest,’ said FBI Asst Director Timothy Langan. ‘These individuals wanted to carry out such a plot because of their adherence to racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist views. When individuals move from espousing particular views to planning or committing acts of violence the FBI will investigate and take action to stop their plans. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to protect our communities.'”

Queen Elizabeth II of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Antigua, Australia, New Zealand, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua-New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, The Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu, is not dead of a Coronavirus infection, contrary to a certain National Zero reader who shall go unnamed and a report on a site called “Hollywood Unlocked” with “DefaultUser” on the byline, as she held a her weekly chat with Prime Minister Boris Johnson via phone on Wednesday, the Independent reports.

Many not very esteemed researchers have postulated Her Royal Majesty is unkillable as she is secretly a Reptilian humanoid alien from the Zeta Reticuli star system. Or the planet Nibiru, which is some kind of nomadic rogue planet that can be steered across the interstellar void. The reason why Nibiru has never been detected by astronomers is explained that it maintains its aphelion in exact opposite of the Earth’s position in orbit around the Sun. Some sources claim Nibiru is itself a sentient planet whom the Reptilians worship as it provides them with nourishment by its plentiful reserves of radioactive sulfur. Anyway, this is great news for British Royalty fans.

The Kremlin says the leadership of the Donetsk and Luhansk breakaway regions of Eastern Ukraine have requested Russian military help “help beat back the aggression of the Ukrainian armed forces to avoid victims among the civilian population and a humanitarian catastrophe in the Donbass,” probably signaling the final fabricated casus belli, Financial Times’s Max Seddon reports.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will pull the plug on the use of the Emergencies Act, marking the end of the state of siege the capital city Ottawa was forced into by the angry anti-vax clustertruckers for weeks starting in January, CTV News reports. Watch this go largely unnoticed and unreported by all the MAGA assholes who called Trudeau a “fascist” for restoring order to his country. Not too many fascists voluntarily give up their powers once they attain them. Hitler might be an exception, though it’s arguable whether that was voluntary.

Meet Martin Hyde, a former professional soccer player from England who is now running for Congress for Florida’s 16th Congressional District as a Republican.  He was pulled over by Sarasota Police Officer Julia Beskin for speeding and texting while driving.  The British immigrant believes he has been granted all the entitlements of self-important wannabes:

• He unsurprisingly states the typical statement by someone who thinks the law doesn’t apply to him:  “Do you know who I am, right?”
• He refuses to turn over his vehicle registration, saying “no” when the officer asks for him to give her the registration, and when Beskin writes up a citation for that offense, says he had it the whole time.
• He tells Beskin that he knows the Chief of Police in the town.  During the stop, Hyde actually claims to have called the chief, telling Beskin that the chief knows her and he’s “gonna have you.”  Hyde tells Beskin to “go call the mayor” whom he falsely believes will tell the officer to not give the offender a ticket.
• Questions whether Beskin feels empowered to boss him around because she was allegedly born in Russia:  “Is it your Russian immigrant status that makes you treat people like this?”  (Remember, he’s a British immigrant copping attitude.)
• He repeatedly calls the officer “rude” although she’s incredibly professional when dealing with an obvious obnoxious douche.
• And of course, he asks to talk to her supervisor.

The Heavy catalogues a number of other confrontations Hyde has had with people as he expressed his racism and sense of superiority to others.

Former ERCOT CEO Bill Magness testified in court Wednesday that Governor Greg Abbott, through an intermediary, specifically instructed him keep electric rates jacked up during last Februrary’s apocalyptic clusterfuck of freezing temperatures, a winter storm, and massive, days long blackouts that cost as many as 1,000 Texans their lives, hit tens of thousands of others with four and five figure bills for a week’s worth of electricity, and caused their cowardly Senator to abandon his dog and flee to Mexico (which he blamed on his daughters for) while a Congresswoman from New York raised millions in charitable donations for relief for the state, the Houston Chronicle reports.

During all of that the governor told this guy – who was promptly fired afterward – to jack up electricity bills for Texans by keeping rates at the maximum cap of $9,000 per megawatt hour. “[Former Public Utility Commission Chairwoman DeAnn Walker] told me the governor had conveyed to her if we emerged from rotating outages it was imperative they not resume,” Magness testified, under pain of perjury. “We needed to do what we needed to do to make it happen.” The order, made after skyrocketing demand due to most home heating in Texas electric based rather than natural gas or oil-fueled in northern states caused a near total collapse of the state’s grid, was meant to discourage larger users like factories and petrochemical facilities to stay shut down while keeping the juice on for residential users as power plants came back online.

From that perspective it seems an understandable enough strategy in a triage situation as hundreds of Texans were perishing from carbon monoxide poisoning and hypothermia in subfreezing temperatures, something a real man would own up to and explain to voters as a necessary measure. Naturally Greg Abbott denied having anything to do with the decision, telling reporters through a spokesman the he was not “involved in any way,” and accusing Magness of “disinformation”, meaning Beto O’Rourke’s campaign ad writers can go home early today.

Ivanka Trump is negotiating the terms of possible cooperation with the House January 6th Committee, the New York Times reports. It was not clear if the talks were serious or if the former nepotistic White House hire was just stalling for time. Landing Ivanka’s cooperation would be a major win for the committee seeking to understand the Donald’s state of mind during the January 6th, 2021 insurrection he had incited and for hours refused to call off while his daughter and other aides pleaded with him to do so. Ivanka Trump has not been formally subpoenaed by the committee yet, but a report from earlier this month said members were considering it.

@USBPChief @USBPChiefLRT participated in the annual Washington's Birthday Celebration Association parades, an annual tradition in #Laredo, #Texas winning the best Equestrian Unit! ⭐️#USBP #HonorFirst pic.twitter.com/vHq681V2pu

— CBP South Texas (@CBPSouthTexas) February 23, 2022

Claiming he’s starting a “media accountability project,” Wisconsin killer Kyle Rittenhouse announced that he’s going to sue various professional athletes, celebrities, politicians and media personalities who referred to him as a “murderer,” The Guardian reports.

In an obvious attempted cash-grab, Rittenhouse claims that the people defamed him after he shot and killed two people during unrest in Kenosha, wounding a third.

“Me and my team have decided to launch the Media Accountability Project,” the grammar-challenged Rittenhouse said, “as a tool to help fundraise and hold the media accountable for the lies they say and deal with them in court.”

A process server managed to track down Donald Trump Jr and notify him he is being sued by former White House National Security Council official and key Trump Impeachment 1.0 witness former Army Lt Col Alex Vindman for defamation on Tuesday afternoon, per a court filing.

“Consistent with our correspondence in August 2021 , the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has now confirmed in the enclosed opinion that a number of so-called ‘sex change’ procedures constitute child abuse under existing Texas law. Because the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) is responsible for protecting children from abuse, I hereby direct your agency to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas. As OAG Opinion No. KP-0401 makes clear, it is already against the law to subject Texas children to a wide variety of elective procedures for gender transitioning, including reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilization, mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or estrogen. See TEX. FAM. CODE 261 .OOI(I)(A)—(D) (defining ‘abuse’).”

“Texas law imposes reporting requirements upon all licensed professionals who have direct contact with children who may be subject to such abuse, including doctors, nurses, and teachers, and provides criminal penalties for failure to report such child abuse. See id. 261.101(b), 261.109(a-I). There are similar reporting requirements and criminal penalties for members of the general public. See id. 261.101(a), 261.109(a). Texas law also imposes a duty on DFPS to investigate the parents of a child who is subjected to these abusive gender-transitioning procedures, and on other state agencies to investigate licensed facilities where such procedures may occur. See TEX. FAM. CODE 261.301(a)—(b). To protect Texas children from abuse, DFPS and all other state agencies must follow the law as explained in OAG Opinion No. KP-0401” writes Texas Governor Greg Abbott to Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Director Jaime Masters.

A new two-dose coronavirus vaccine by European drugmakers Sanofi and GSK shows a 100% effectiveness rate in preventing severe Covid cases and hospitalizations, the New York Times reports.

Sanofi and GSK and received billions of dollars from the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed in 2020, and it becomes the last of four major drugmakers which receive those funds to introduce a vaccine.  Sanofi recorded $14 billion in net income in 2020; GSK logged $7.3 in annual income in 2020.

The vaccine, which has yet to receive FDA approval, could also be used a third booster shot.  In a Phase 3 clinical trial, the Sanofi/GSK formula shows 58% efficacy against symptomatic disease and a 75% efficacy against moderate to severe disease.

On Monday the North Carolina attorney general’s office ruled that the post-Civil War 14th Amendment provision on banning any person who is considered to have participated in an insurrection against the United States government is still very much in effect and that White Nationalist MAGA bro Madison Cawthorn’s eligibility to run for reelection in November is now firmly in the hands of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, Politico reports.

This is not good news for Maddie as, barring any major legal intervention, the burden of proof will be on him to affirmatively establish that he did not in any way participate in the Capitol riot. Here’s hoping they kick the fucker out – not just to remove an asshole like Cawthorn but provide a road map for disqualifying Trump from appearing on the ballot in North Carolina should he run again in 2024. That’s 16 electoral college votes off the table for him before the first vote is cast.

Election lawyer Marc Elias tweets that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has adopted a Congressional redistricting map that wipes out Republican gerrymandering and will likely result in Democratic-favoring elections.  Details to follow as available.