Scheduled for around 12:30 a.m. ET, the SpaceX Falcon will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with American commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Warren “Woody” Hoburg from NASA, with UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev as mission specialists.  The crew will rendezvous with the International Space Station to switch personnel.

Starbucks illegally fired six employees who attempted to organize unions at the company’s locations in Rochester and Buffalo, an administrative judge for the National Labor Relations Board determined, the BBC reports.

The judge noted the company’s anti-union activities were “egregious and widespread” violations of US labor laws.  The decision requires Starbucks to re-hire the former employees, re-hire another employee forced to leave the job, and offer compensation to those affected.  The judge found the company practiced “a general disregard for the employees’ fundamental rights” including sending senior corporate employees to locations considering unionizing to try to intimidate the staff and influence the vote.

“I want to challenge people who are watching tonight who don’t wear red hats, who don’t consider themselves MAGA, who don’t consider themselves very strong political people,” the Queen of Alternative Facts and the inventor of the Bowling Green Massacre, former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway says as she stares into the camera on secret Trump advisor and self-declared on-air liar Sean Hannity’s show.  “I want you to ask yourself how many times you’ve been lied to, not just by this government, but how many times have you been lied to by the people whose job it is to tell you the truth in the media [She then turns and looks directly at Hannity.] all in the service of getting the President.  Trump Derangement Syndrome is real.  We lived it.  There’s no booster.  There’s no vaccine.  It’s just going to go on and on, and it’s a very serious thing.  If it’s not him, it’ll be someone else.”

Set aside the fact that less than a week ago, messages from Hannity detailing how the Fox hosts lied to their audiences were released.  Set aside that Conway’s former boss was found to have lied in excess of 30,000 times during his four years in office.  She’s right about Trump Derangement Syndrome:  it causes people to destroy their family relationships, the Constitution and their job prospects.  Conway would know all about that.  And why the fuck does Hannity have a live audience?  Is his ego so fragile he needs reinforcement?

A federal judge on Wednesday tossed Trump Media and Technology Group CEO Devin Nunes’s defamation lawsuit against CNN and anchor Jake Tapper over an October 31, 2022 segment in which Tapper accused Nunes of spreading disinformation and cruel jokes in a Truth Social post about the then-recent assault on Paul Pelosi by QAnon-pilled MAGA freak David DePape.

Huh. Thought it would’ve been over something from back in like 2017 or 2018 when Nunes was still in Congress and spreading disinformation about his Orange Overlord’s many crimes. That’s pretty quick for a defamation lawsuit to get tossed. Also, has he won any of his suits agains the MSM?

Taiwan has reported more than 20 incursions into its air defense identification zone by Chinese aircraft in the last 24 hours, raising alarms in Taipai and Washington about increasingly aggressive acts that could spark a conflict, Reuters reports.

Four advanced J-16 fighters and 17 older J-10 fighters flew into the southwest corner of Taiwan’s air defense zone, near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, with the older fighters staying closer to the Chinese coast as the J-16s.  This flight followed a similar flight of 19 aircraft on Wednesday (local time).

A 40-year-old Pennsylvania man was arrested by federal agents after he tried to pass explosive material onto a flight headed to Orlando in checked baggage, Florida at a regional airport in Allentown, WCAU NBC-10 in Philadelphia reports.

The TSA said Mark Muffley of Lansford was seen on security cameras carrying the bag into the airport around 10:45 a.m. on Monday and checking the bag at the Allegiant Air counter.  Around 40 minutes later, the suitcase triggered a routine screening before being loaded on the aircraft.  Agents searched the bag and found a three-inch disk of a compound suspected to be explosive material, wrapped in wax paper, sewn into the lining of the bag.  Two fuses were connected to the device.  As local police and FBI arrived at the scene, agents found additional items in his checked baggage, including a can of butane, a lighter, a pipe with white powder residue, a wireless drill with cordless batteries and two GFCI outlets taped together with black tape.

Analysis showed the disk to be made of a mix of black powder and an explosive found in fireworks.  Officials say one fuse was for a short burn, while the other was for a longer time before detonation.  Airport security paged Muffley in the passenger area of the airport but he didn’t respond.  Police later arrested him at his home.  This arrest comes just two days after a New Jersey man tried to check a small arsenal in his suitcases at the Newark airport.

Speaking in Baltimore at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference on Wednesday, President Biden ripped on white nationalist psychopath Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s Tuesday parading of a poor mother who had lost her two sons to fentanyl – that was Biden’s fault. Problem for Greene was that it happened in July 2020, when her Orange Allah was still President.

The Senate passed a bill Wednesday overturning a Department of Labor rule allowing investment fund managers to consider factors other than financial outcomes including social, governance and environmental impacts when considering investments, CNN reports, a move that will likely trigger President Joe Biden’s first veto.

Democrats Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia to reach the simple majority needed to pass the bill thanks to the Congressional Review Act, which allows legislation passed by simple majorities in both the Senate and the House to roll back Executive Branch regulations.  The Biden Administration endorses the regulation because it gives fund managers greater freedom to invest in companies that may underperform others but include social and environmental awareness in their missions.

Former Trump White House ghoul witch Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday met with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to talk about fat former President Trump’s hush money payoff to pornstar Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 election, the New York Times reports.

It’s not clear if Conway testified to the grand jury impaneled in January to reopen the investigation into the orange degenerate slob’s burying a 45-second sexual encounter with the blonde adult performer in 2006, however according to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s memoir Conway was the one who acknowledged and thanked Cohen for fronting the $130,000 payoff on the day of.

Congressman Adam Schiff rates at 53/6 percent in favorable vs unfavorable among Dem respondents to a Quinnipiac poll of California voters, edging out Congresswomen Katie Porter and Barbara Lee at 47/5 and 29/6 percent favorable vs unfavorable, respectively ahead of a 2024 primary showdown for retiring Senator Dianne Feinstein’s seat. All the remainder of each rating was “Haven’t heard enough,” indicating ample ground for all three, but Lee in particular at 65 percent to make up in name recognition. Which tracks with their respective profiles given that it wasn’t Porter or Lee recently kicked off a committee they chaired by Republicans seeking petty retribution.

A video of Republican Texas state Representative Nate Schatzline skipping and dancing around outdoors in a black-sequined dress surfaced at an inconvenient time for the former pastor and first-term lawmaker, less than two months after he introduced Texas House Bill 1266, a proposed code amendment banning minors from any venue that hosts drag performances, NBC News reports.

It’s not clear when the video was shot, but it is certainly more recent than fellow anti-drag Republican Tennessee Governor Billy Lee’s 1977 high school yearbook drag pic, as the music in Schatzline’s performance dates to 2010. Schatzline responded angrily Sunday to the video on Twitter, writing “Y’all really going crazy over me wearing a dress as a joke back in school for a theatre project? Yah, that’s not a sexually explicit drag show… lol y’all will twist ANYTHING.”

Spandex-wearing grapple freak Congressman Jim Jordan has wrestled in some mega MAGA witnesses for his next big “Weaponization” committee hearing, with cool edgy journalist dude Matt Taibbi and equally edgy doctor Michael Shellenberger to testify next week, the Federalist reports.

Taibbi was recently lauded for his brave defense of downplaying how the Trump White House had asked Twitter to take down a tweet by a reality show star who called Donald a “pussy ass bitch.” Shellenberger courageously stood up for the right wingers who wanted to pretend Paul Pelosi attacker David DePape was not politically motivated when Shellenberger wrote a lengthy Substack post claiming it was just drugs that made DePape smash Pelosi’s skull with a hammer.

A New Jersey man with at least two other outstanding warrants was arrested Sunday in the parking lot of a Bayonne Walmart after he had set piles of clothes on fire to create a distraction while he stole a television from the electronics section of the store, 1010 WINS reports.

No one was injured in the incident and employees quickly extinguished the blaze before police and firefighters arrived. Witnesses then identified Leroy Rabb Jr, 41, who was quickly apprehended by cops as he attempted to hide behind a car in the parking lot, still holding the TV.

Why the fuck the idiot had neglected the all-important “escape” phase of his otherwise not-actually-that-bad plan to shoplift a television while staff were distracted by arson plan is unclear. Rabb is charged with shoplifting, aggravated arson, risking/causing widespread injury or damage and endangering the welfare of children. The charges from his other warrants were not specified.

MAGA Arizona state Senate President Sonny Borrelli likely perjured himself in his 2018 divorce filings when he claimed that there was “no evidence that domestic violence has occurred during this marriage,” despite pleading guilty to disorderly conduct after a 2001 arrest following a domestic incident and another in 2004 which left his then-wife hospitalized, the Daily Beast reports.

The stereotypical greasy mobster-like character, who is already facing possible federal criminal liability as he was subpoenaed last month over his involvement in Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of the post-2020 election Trump coup attempt, was scrutinized by nonprofit watchdog group Campaign for Accountability, who informed the state Attorney General Kris Mayes and the Mohave County DA Matt Smith about the perjury in a letter on Tuesday.

We still have the hearing running here but Ted Cruz’s batshittery deserves its own distinct entry. This is an old breed Hill MAGA douchebag troll like “ClassicalStrings” or his ilk’s mode of thinking being verbalized in the United States Senate. Truly breathtaking stuff.

Free speech crusader Elon Musk’s Twitter has banned Utah Senator Mike Lee’s personal account “@basedMikeLee,” reportedly for threatening the Japanese Prime Minister over something that had to do with an American service member who was arrested, probably for rape if we had to guess.

Rejoice bacon and cheese sandwich on fried chicken bread fans! KFC is bringing the high cholesterol meat-on-meat plus cheese treat back to the United States next week, CNN reports.

It’s the biggest news from the fast food fried chicken outlet since their German subsidiary’s ordering app accidentally promoted the memorial day for a brutal 1934 Nazi pogrom as a reason to buy their products. The bacon and cheese sandwich on fried chicken bread, known in KFC marketing parlance as a “Double Down,” first took KFC’s US customer base by storm back in 2010 and now it’s back with a bigger, bolder price. While the substitution of fried chicken patties for bread on a bacon and cheese sandwich may be the most innovative American KFC customers have seen in recent years, it pales in comparison to the groundbreaking Double Down Hot Dog available on and off over the last decade at KFC locations in the Philippines. It’s exactly what it sounds like.

Cops in Peru have arrested local weirdo Julio Cesar and given the country’s culture ministry an 800 year-old Incan mummy Cesar had been hauling around in a thermal food delivery bag bearing the logo of a South American DoorDash or GrubHub knockoff called “Pedidos Ya,” NBC News reports.

“It sleeps in my bedroom, with me. There’s my bed, the TV set and next to it, there’s Juanita. I take care of it. It’s like, if you’ll pardon the expression, as if it were my spiritual girlfriend,” Cesar told local outlet Noticias Sin Filtro Puno TV about the mummy. Scans by the culture ministry revealed that “Juanita,” who Cesar said had been in his family’s possession for generations, was actually a male.

It is unclear what kind of horrific supernatural torment is in store for Cesar as punishment for his disrespect and misgendering of a ritually interred ancient Incan or if it can act fast enough before some other inmate in the notoriously savage Peruvian prison system does the job first.

A new US intel report examining the “Havana Syndrome” concluded that the mysterious symptoms experienced by American personnel in Cuba and other places overseas were not likely the result of some exotic energy weapon being wielded by a foreign adversary, the Washington Post reports.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told the Houston Chronicle Wednesday that sources in the state legislature told him the Texas Education Department will take over the city’s school system as early as next week, allegedly to correct underperformance but who the hell knows with these assholes.

“I’m talking to legislators, and what they’re saying to me is that the state intends to takeover the district, replacing the entire board, replacing the superintendent, and I find that totally alarming. HISD has 273 schools. How do you come in and take over the largest school district in Texas and do it successfully?” said Turner as he warned of the coming clusterfuck.