Russian President and Republican Party leader Vladimir Putin risks losing everything with his hijinks in the Ukraine, as events in Ukraine are beginning to make him look like a “paper tiger” who is no longer any kind of threat to either the US or NATO.

Ukrainian president Volomdymir Zelenskyy does not seem especially worried about the prospect of a Russian invasion, and has urged the US to tone down the militant rhetoric. At a recent news conference, Zelenskyy said that: “I don’t consider the situation now more tense than before. There is a feeling abroad that there is war here. That’s not the case.”

Tom Brady is finally retiring after 22 seasons in the NFL ESPN reports. Brady is often labeled as the “GOAT”, short for “Greatest of All Time” due to winning the Super Bowl seven times, and his uncanny ability to move the football down the field and into the end-zone in the last two minutes of a football game.

Brady’s career took a turn in the last few years, when he left his long-time position as quarterback of the New England patriots to go to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Brady has also started a new career selling subway sandwiches, crypto-currencies and rental cars in ads that air during NFL games.

Variety reports that Joni Mitchell is joining Neil Young in asking that her music be removed from the Spotify platform. Mitchell declared on her website that: “I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify. Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”

The removal is to protest Spotify’s contract with MAGA dumbass Joe Rogan, whose talk radio program has actively promoted vaccine skepticism, and opposition to masking requirements in schools and other public places.

Data on new Covid infections are showing some positive signs in the final week of January 2022. NBC News reports that Covid is “in retreat” in the Northeastern states, with a dramatic decline in hospitalizations in New York and New Jersey. The CDC.gov Covidtracker also shows a decline in new cases and hospitalizations, noting that: “As of January 26, 2022, the current 7-day moving average of daily new cases (596,860) decreased 19.9% compared with the previous 7-day moving average (744,806).” That same site notes that deaths are still increasing, due to a high rate of Covid infection in states like Alabama and Mississippi.

The Republican Party in the US is currently in a state of collapse over scandals created by their attempts to destroy Democracy, and the rampant sexual perversion of several leading party members. The January 6th Committee recently subpoenaed 14 fake electors who were part of the Trump Administration’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The fake electors scandal could result in numerous GOP leaders going to prison on conspiracy charges. There is a very real possibility that many GOP incumbents currently running for election in 2022, or planning to run for re-election in 2024, may have to suspend their campaigns after being sentenced to  time in a Federal prison.

Daily Show host Jon Stewart frequently lampooned American news coverage for the lazy and hyperbolic nature of their coverage. Recent coverage of the “Bomb Cyclone” hitting the city of Boston demonstrates everything that Stewart loved to lampoon. While there is no question that a major weather event like a bomb cyclone deserves some coverage, local and national news is saturated with news of the blizzard, and several  news outlets in the Boston area are posting continuous coverage of the storm,, including live-streaming coverage of the storm from NBC10-Boston,

In the last several months, Republican legislatures in several states have attempted to pass laws that would allow Republican dominated state legislatures to throw out election results that they do not like, and substitute alternate slates of electors who will vote for Republican candidates. These kinds of laws violate the United States Constitution. In this article I will briefly highlight a few key points that should be considered when arguing against these kinds of laws.

Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of [choosing] Senators.” This relatively brief passage offers states great leeway regarding issues such as where polling places are located, and how the process to register to vote should be managed. However, the courts have upheld that Federal legislation, such as the Voting Rights Act, and the 24th Amendment (which abolished poll taxes) are enforceable.

Republican Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker said Friday that Biden’s yet-to-be-announced Black female nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer would be the “beneficiary” of affirmative action, the Mississippi Free Press reports. “The irony is that the Supreme Court is at the very time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota,” Wicker said to host Paul Gallo on SuperTalk Mississippi Radio, adding “The majority of the court may be saying writ large that it’s unconstitutional. We’ll see how that irony works out.” There is no record of Wicker making a similar complaint when Trump pledged to nominate a woman to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Former Washington State Trooper Robert Lamay, who in October quit his job over the state patrol’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, has died of the virus, the state patrol chief announced late Friday. “Jay Inslee can kiss my ass,” Lamay, 50, had said during a dramatic “mic drop” moment which will almost certainly not now and not ever serve as a cautionary tale of hubris to the MAGA anti-vax set. They’re probably say he was purposely infected by the Deep State with a bio-engineered super COVID strain or whatever as revenge for his defiance and for propaganda purposes.

“A lot of people have said Tom Malinowski, y’know, he’s not the sharpest drawer… [sudden look of terror]… knife in the drawer, right, even by the standards of New Jersey.”

• I like the current pace of the news coming out of the New York, Georgia and J6 probes.  Understanding that we probably hear 20% of what’s happening (if that), that means they’re gettin’ shit done.
• Reportedly, Hannity had calls with Trump throughout Trump’s presidency, including after January 6th.  A journalist would see those calls as a basis for a book giving insights into the President’s mind.  Hannity sees it as a breach of media shill-presidential confidentiality.
• Play politics all you want, but leave the dogs alone.  They’re pets, not pawns.  Use your children for that.
• Republicans four years ago:  “Look how much Trump has spent on arms to send to Ukraine!”  Republicans now:  “Why is Biden sending billions of dollars of arms to Ukraine?  Why not just give Ukraine to Russia?  They asked nicely for it.”
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume LIV”

“So not every country is like ours.  In Hungary, the government is a nationalist government, not hostile to other governments, but for its own people,” Fox host and brevart Hungarian envoy Tucker Carlson extolls.  “And that is massively offensive to George Soros.  Soros, in response, is using sympathetic international media outlets as a proxy to attack the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, who by the way is often described as a radical, is about as radical as, say, a conservative Democrat might’ve been in 1992.  Not radical at all.  Neither is that country.  It’s hardly a right-wing country.  So the journalists who claim this cite Soros-funded research that claims Orbán is a threat to free press, when in fact the press corps in Hungary is far more balanced than it is here.  There’s massive opposition to the president and prime minister in Hungary, unlike here where there’s almost unanimous support ‘cept on this channel for our President.”

The House January 6th Select Committee has subpoenaed former Trump White House spokesworm Judd Deere, CNN reports. The committee want to talk to Deere about his role in “formulating White House’s response to the January 6 attack as it occurred,” and a meeting the prior day, per the letter asking for Deere to show up to a deposition next month. The letter also mentions that Trump repeatedly asked in the meeting: “What are your ideas for getting the RINOs to do the right thing tomorrow? How do we convince Congress?” Deere’s Friday subpoena comes just hours after 14 of the “fake electors” from seven states were served.

“Honestly, Sarah Palin is to be commended because she’s trying to act like a normal human being in the greatest city in America, New York City,” former GOP “It” Girl and Cruella DeVille cosplayer Michele Bachmann (remember her?) proclaims of the failed half-term governor from Alaska.  “She’s going out to eat at a wonderful little boutique Italian restaurant.”

So when Palin acts like one the “East Coast elites” conservatives from “flyover America” complain about, she violates her quarantine, and violates the law of the city she’s in, and they’re fine with it ’cause IOKIYAR.

The Russian military is shipping supplies of blood for transfusions to the area along the Ukrainian border, apparently in preparation for casualties, furthering concerns that the massive troop build-up isn’t a border security exercise, three US intelligence officials told Reuters.

The shipments were made as Russian president Vladimir Putin (Q-Moscow) told diplomats that the United States and Western leaders didn’t address the security concerns he has raised with them regarding a potential NATO member along Russia’s border.

The Ukraine situation has hung on the brink of war for weeks, with President Joe Biden being able to rally European allies to support the defense of Ukraine from Russian aggression.  It’s the first significant effort by a US president to harness allied cooperation in more than five years.

“I wish I could say more, but this is it, so State 10-34, this is the last time you’ll hear me in a state patrol car,” former Washington State Trooper Robert Lamay defiantly announced in October when he quit the department because of the vaccine mandate imposed on state workers by Democratic Governor Jay Inslee.  “Jay Inslee can kiss my ass,” he asserts before a dramatic mic drop.

Thanks to this video, Lamay became a folk hero among the anti-vaxxer movement, with the video being played hundreds of thousands of times across social media platforms.

Today, 50-year-old Lamay is hospitalized and on a ventilator with Covid-19.

Republican West Virginia Governor Jim Justice addressed a meeting of the state legislature to tell Bette Midler and other people who doubt the competence of West Virginia’s that they can kiss the hiney hole of his bulldog Babydog–and then shows the people where they can put their lips.  In late December, after Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin had refused to reform the filibuster to facilitate the passage of infrastructure and voting rights legislation, Midler tweeted that West Virginians are “backward” and “poor, illiterate and strung out.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed the scheduled Tuesday DC Circuit Court of Appeals nomination hearing for South Carolina Federal Judge and shortlisted potential Supreme Court pick J. Michelle Childs, ABC News’s Rachel Scott reports. Extremely unwieldy sentence in simpler terms: They’re not going to waste time confirming this woman to the federal appeals bench if in two weeks they have to start the whole fucking process over again to confirm her to the Supreme Court. It doesn’t mean she’s the nominee, but it’s a very strong indication she could be.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill filed an appeal to the US Supreme Court on Friday over a lower federal court’s ruling the state violated the Voting Rights Act by failing to draw a second predominantly-Black Congressional district, The Economist’s Steven Mazie reports.

Boston-area blizzard warning sign, spotted Thursday evening by Biden Administration Ambassador-designate to China Nicholas Burns.