Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the UK are just imagining things and there is no plot to replace Volodmir Zelensky with a more Moscow-friendly leader, the AP reports. “The disinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is more evidence that it is the NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, who are escalating tensions around Ukraine. We call on the British Foreign Office to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense,” said spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Sunday.

The Republican-dominated Ohio Redistricting Commission passed a new redistricting map which gives the GOP a significant advantage in elections, violating a directive from the court that rejected the last version, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

The new maps give Republicans a 57-42 advantage in the state house and 20-13 advantage in the state senate.  After reviewing an earlier version that was more gerrymandered, a judge ordered the Commission to create maps that reflected the 54% Republican/46% Democratic ratio that voters in the state had shown over the previous decade.

“It is shameful that we are here again, adopting yet another unconstitutional map in direct contradiction to the Ohio Supreme Court,” said Democratic state house Minority Leader-elect Allison Russo. “I’ve felt a little bit like I am a mom with my two teenagers when I ask them to fold and put away the laundry and they simply have stuffed it in their drawers and called the job done.”

A man in Maine who had just severed his arm staggered out to the street carrying his severed limb and ran into two city workers who happened to be trained in the use of tourniquets, a stroke of luck that likely saved his life, the Sun Journal reports.

The unnamed man reportedly severed his arm at the shoulder in an accident involving a band saw.  Police were able to trace a trail of blood from Maple Street in Lewiston down Park Street and into the a general merchandise store called AK Market to confirm the location of the accident.

The two city arborists who assisted the man, Cam Bernard and Bob Olsen, were able to assist the man until police and paramedics arrived.  The man was taken to an area hospital and is expected to survive.

https://t.co/se1QUYWWEU pic.twitter.com/QafZlEkxrR

— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) January 22, 2022

Fox News also omits that the scumbag who did it is actually currently in jail charged with assault with intent to murder. The Wayne County DA may or may not have fucked up initially, but either way, as of Friday Marsh is behind bars on and will be arraigned Monday.

In a recent White House Press Conference, President Biden noted that his administration recently passed legislation outlawing surprise medical bills, and has seen record job growth over the course of the past year. In that time, the Republican Party has thrown temper tantrums over Mr. Potato Head and Big Bird, and become increasingly blatant about their love of white supremacists.

The same Republican Party who complained that Bill Clinton’s indiscretions in the Oval Office mean every Democrat should resign from government in shame, now insist it’s “no big deal,” that Florida Representative Matt Gaetz is alleged to have thrown drug-fueled orgies with teen prostitutes that included a number of prominent Florida Republicans, possibly even including current Florida Governor and prospective 2024 GOP Presidential contender Ron DeSantis.

The Arizona Democratic Party censured Arizona Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema for failing to vote to change Senate rules to allow a vote on legislation to product voting rights, Politico reports.

Siding with Republicans and fellow Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Sinema failed to support a measure that would provide a single exception for the use of the filibuster on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would provide federal protections against many of the moves Republicans have made on the state level to subvert the ability of people to vote.

Donors to Democrats have stated they will withdraw financial support to Sinema, who has rankled rank and file Democrats with her privileged attitude, loyalty to corporate interests and her affinity to showboating when splitting from the Democratic caucus.  Her constituents apparently are also growing tired of her antics and her unwillingness to meet with people from her district:  she has just an 8% job approval rating among Arizona Democrats.

The State Department ordered non-essential personnel and family members of staff to begin evacuating Ukraine starting Monday, Fox News reports. The evacuation mirrors a Russian diplomatic exodus reported earlier this week as a conflict grows increasingly imminent.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan, which was created with the help of the defeated former guy and former Sycophant of State Mike Pompeo is facing an array of challenges including a nationwide famine, earthquakes and civil unrest. Afghans in cities are currently upset with how the group keeps trying to edge women out of any secular life, and Foreign Governments are refusing to grant international recognition of the Taliban regime. The group has responded by insisting that all girls will be back in school by Spring, but other countries are reluctant to trust the organization, given their ties to terrorism, and their apparent inability to control their own fighters.

Most Taliban fighters are socially and economically frustrated young men who are barely literate, and have no concept of what life is like outside their region. In that regard, they are very much like Trump supporters in the US.

Los Angeles County in California saw a record number of Covid deaths on Thursday, January 20th. There were 102 deaths that day, reports ABC News. Staff at Cedars-Sinai medical center report the mortality rate for Covid is around 1.4%, but the record high numbers of patients are creating the surge.

The hospital reported that almost all of the people in their ICU are unvaccinated, or only partially vaccinated. Covid also appears to aggravate underlying heart conditions like heart disease: “According to LA Public Health, about 50% of patients statewide were admitted for non-COVID reasons and only found out they were infected while undergoing routine testing.”

There’s been a great deal of concern lately over the topic of inflation. Often times signs of future trends can be gleaned from the weekly EIA Oil Inventory report. A number of really unusual movements occurred in oil markets this past week, which led to oil prices falling right around $2 per barrel on Friday, January 21st. Looking at the chart at the bottom of the report, we see that oil refinery activity slowed in the past week and total output fell by around 91,000 barrels per day. Gasoline production fell off by over 300,000 barrels per day, yet stocks still increased. The real change in the report is apparent in the “Net Imports” block, where we see the value for exports (the number in that section is negative because the US exports more refined petroleum products than it imports – US refineries import raw crude, refine it, then ship it back overseas) has declined by over 400,000 barrels per day, suggesting oil demand in other countries is slackening.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has held firm in negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over negotiations in the Ukraine. Blinken is quoted by Al Jazeera as saying that “[Russia] can choose the path of diplomacy that can lead to peace and security, or the path that will lead only to conflict, severe consequences and international condemnation.”

Russia has already put forward a sweeping list of security demands that are widely seen as unrealistic, and an attempt to weaken the United States and NATO. The Biden Administration appears to have little desire to give in to Russia, after they’ve already attempted to interfere in US elections, and appeared to exercise an inappropriate degree of control over the defeated former guy. Moscow has threatened “unspecified military action” if their demands are not met. Russia is in a weakened position however, as a combination of conventional military inferiority is paired with diminishing influence of Russian social media efforts in the US, as American social media outlets become more aggressive about purging accounts that advocate for violence, and American news commenters are becoming more skilled at spotting and calling out likely Russian troll accounts.

Irish national police are investigating after two dumbasses in the town of Carlow dragged a very obviously dead elderly man to the post office in an attempt to collect his public retirement benefits check, Independent.ie reports. “Gardaí are investigating all the circumstances surrounding the unexplained death of an elderly male in the Carlow area this morning, Friday 21st January 2022. The services of the Garda Technical Bureau and the Office of the State Pathologist have been requested. A post mortem will be conducted by the Office of the State Pathologist, the results of which will determine the course of the investigation,” said a Gardaí spokesman.

• Meat Loaf might’ve done anything for love, but he didn’t do a damned thing for health.  
• “There’s a famous statement — ‘sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate,’ ” Trump said last Friday.  He was quoting Joseph Stalin from 1923. Trump is literally using Stalinism to overthrow our Constitution.
• Please stop asking why Garland hasn’t indicted Trump yet–and I say this believing Trump deserves indictment.  It’s barely been a year since the J6 attack, and pursuing a prosecution of a former president should not be rushed into.  As the saying goes, if you aim for the king, you best not miss.  I’d rather have a clean hit that took awhile than have Trump walk away with just shrapnel wounds.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume LIII”

Poor Dan Scavino, former Trump White House Deputy Chief of Staff:  he first tried to get a court to quash a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress.  Then he also tried to get the court to make the subpoena anonymous so no one would know who was called to testify, according to Mike Scarcella of Reuters.

He failed on both accounts, and now we Scavino is having his phone records subpoenaed, AND he’s too cowardly to have his name connected to another Trump debacle.

South Carolina Republican Senator and fainting couch enthusiast Lindsey Graham touts Trump impact on foreign policy:  “He said, Putin is realizing that Biden’s weak, but he doesn’t realize that Biden won’t be around anymore in 2024, so president Trump said today, if they invade the Ukraine, the Russians, it will make it impossible for any future president to have normal relations with Russia, which I thought was a pretty damn wise observation.”

First, Biden’s first term will end in 2025; Lindsey’s shaving a full year off Biden’s term.  Second, I’m pretty sure Putin understands the US Constitutional election cycle.  And third, well, duh, Lindsey.  An invasion would definitely impact how the US deals with Russia.

The House Oversight Committee will question the leaders of four major American oil companies during a hearing next week to probe the companies’ role in promoting climate change disinformation and the industry’s role in defeating policies to combat climate change, Reuters reports.

Officers of ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron will appear before the committee to follow up to a 2021 hearing in which the committee subpoenaed documents from the companies about their internal deliberations on how to address climate change activism.

Congress wants to review the efforts of the oil companies to downplay or denigrate the research of climate scientists and demean their efforts to alert the public of the dangers posed by climate change.  The investigation will concentrate on how much of the accepted science the companies acknowledged internally, versus what they stated publicly.  It will also investigate the oil industry’s efforts to sway policy using false information.

Today USS Constitution held its Change of Command Ceremony. Please Welcome the 77th Commanding Officer of Old Ironsides Commander Billie J. Farrell! Constitution's first female Commanding Officer! Huzzah! pic.twitter.com/UIv4MsEzDB

— USS CONSTITUTION (@USSConstitution) January 21, 2022

Two Richmond, Virginia residents have petitioned the US Supreme Court to order the restoration of the city’s now-removed Robert E Lee monument, NBC Washington reports. The two assholes, descendants of the owners of the property ceded to the state with the condition that the statue remain in perpetuity, argue the Virginia State Supreme Court acted recklessly when they nullified the agreement because “principle” blah blah blah. “The impact of the decision of the Supreme Court of Virginia affirming Governor Northam’s removal order will be widespread and significant,” wrote attorney Patrick McSweeney in the petition. “If this Virginia decision is followed, every contract entered into by a state government can be abrogated when a governor or a court – not the legislature – decides that the contract violates public policy. This would leave those who contract with state governments at the mercy of judges and executive or administrative officials who have no legitimate role in setting the Commonwealth’s public policy,” the petition states.