Germany’s center-right leader Friedrich Merz suffered a brutal setback in his bid to become chancellor of Europe’s largest economy on Tuesday, winning 310 of the needed 316 votes in the 630-seat Bundestag and creating massive uncertainty as to what’s next, the BBC reports.

The Bundestag will have another 14 days to choose either Merz or another candidate as chancellor with more than half its members. Further turbulence could be a boon for the extremist Fourth Reich AfD, who responded to Merz’s shitshow by calling for a fresh round of elections.

“The company is operating in an uncertain macro-economic environment with significant volatility, including changes in global trade policy and US tariffs. Although tariffs did not affect Mattel’s first quarter financial results, the company is taking mitigating actions designed to fully offset the potential incremental cost impact of tariffs on future performance. These include: Accelerating diversification of its supply chain and further reducing reliance on China-sourced product, optimizing product sourcing and product mix, and, where necessary, taking pricing action in its US business. The company also intends to rebalance promotional activity to drive cost efficiencies while maintaining sufficient support and is accelerating cost savings actions and increasing the 2025 savings target under the Optimizing for Profitable Growth program from $60 million to $80 million.”

“Given the volatile macro-economic environment and evolving US tariff landscape, it is difficult to predict consumer spending and Mattel’s US sales in the remainder of the year and holiday season.”

“The company is therefore pausing full-year 2025 guidance until Mattel has sufficient visibility. The company is maintaining its $600 million share repurchase target for 2025, in line with the company’s capital allocation priorities. Our plans and performance, including the success of our mitigating actions, are subject to market volatility, additional tariffs and regulatory actions impacting our business, unexpected disruptions to our supply chain, and other macro-economic uncertainties and business risks,” says toy manufacturer Mattel, owner of the Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, and a shit ton of other popular brands, in their Monday Q1 2025 earnings statement to investors.

White nationalist alcoholic Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth used Signal to tell aides to inform foreign governments about an ongoing military operation and discussed in detail a lot of sensitive but unclassified details of his personal travel arrangements and media appearances, the Wall Street Journal reports on another one of those storylines that still won’t just die already.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Italian native Franciscan Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa is seen by Fox News as a leading candidate to succeed Pope Francis after this week’s conclave. Fox News does not name any of sources to assert Pizzballa’s status as “one of the top candidates,” so sounds like they just want everyone else to take their word for it. Pizzaballa did offer himself to Hamas in exchange for all of the children kidnapped from southern Israel during the October 7th attack, so he seems like a decent enough guy. Keep in mind that all popes change their names upon ascendancy.

Drug-addicted billionaire Elon Musk enlisted the FBI to investigate whether a “sniper” had somehow shot a SpaceX rocket that exploded on launch in 2016, Futurism reports on an FOIA request return.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp just personally said fuck you to John Thune and Steve Daines and will not be challenging Dem Senator Jon Ossoff next year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports on a very big deal for Dems’ hopes of retaking the Senate or at least getting to 50/50 next year.

Of all the dumbest most untrue things a Republican has said on live television, this statement from Congressman David Joyce about understanding “shared sacrifice” as his means of saying all this shit about kids needed to do with fewer toys because of Trump’s moronic trade war is up there. Like was this fucker in a coma between March 2020 and about July 2021? How many assholes simply refused to just wear goddamned mask in public to reduce the chance that they would spread COVID, forget about getting vaccinated for it. Jesus freaking Christ who the hell honestly believes that, lol.

That he’s making that shit up to explain away the shitshow that is months or even weeks away as retail stores start getting hit with shortages and dramatic price increases on Chinese exports, all of this self-inflicted by the illustrious leader of his party just makes it that much beet.

“I have ordered an immediate assessment to determine our needs and the next steps. USP Alcatraz has a rich history. We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order, and justice. We will be actively working with our law enforcement and other federal partners to reinstate this very important mission,” says BOP Director William K Marshall in a statement via CBS’s Scott MacFarlane.

Yeah, still nothing about closing down the museum and immediately getting to work on “restoring this powerful symbol or law, order, and justice” back to being a functional penal facility. Sounds more like just pushing paper around until the fat fuck forgets that he ever posted that stupid bullshit.

“Although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,” says White House minion Kush Desai in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter about convicted felon President Trump’s ridiculous movie tariff idea.

Meaning not dead yet, but dying and probably too many details to work through to actually end up following through and doubling the price to rent Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on Amazon Prime.

Some folks might be of the mind that it’s crude and vulgar to constantly allude to masturbation and male-on-male sexual intercourse to describe the public statements made in support of President Trump by the members of his party. When objecting in good faith of being sincerely offended they don’t actually deny that the impulse to do so is wrong, they simply wish that there was a gentler way of doing it. The ones that disagree for bad faith purposes – as in his fans – will try to ascribe it to a latent homosexuality on the part of his detractors who would engage in such vulgarities.

Yet in the real world it doesn’t need to be that complicated. When a grown man goes on national television says something like “This is what the Democrats – They lose their mind because of Trump Derangement Syndrome and why President Trump has been so effective. Alcatraz means something right? And so when you have a Law and Order president, you have two tracks here,” and then going on about how great of an idea this is when it’s not, it’s just fucking stupid and pointless, he just sounds like he wants to be facialed by Trump. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. End of story.

“President Trump wants to step up efforts to protect Republican control of the House in hopes of avoiding an impeachment debate and congressional investigations if Democrats seize the chamber, according to GOP sources. ‘It is super important to the White House, and really the whole White House is very focused on it,’ said a source familiar with strategy talks about protecting the majority.”

“President Donald Trump and GOP leaders are beginning to plot their midterm push to hang on to power amid a shaky political environment, courting candidates in critical battleground House and Senate races while leaning hard on an issue that could animate the MAGA faithful: impeachment”

That the previous two paragraphs say more or less the exact same thing is exactly why they were pasted in here: The first is the lede to a story The Hill printed on April 30th, 2018 while the second was from a CNN story seven years, 0 months, and five days later. That the GOP’s strategy is the same from the better part of a decade ago and not only did it not work but Trump was impeached twice the next Congress is not mentioned in the CNN article that quotes NRCC chair Richard Hudson as boasting that “President Trump’s gonna be crucial for us in keeping the House.”

“Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a historic opportunity for illegal aliens to receive both financial and travel assistance to facilitate travel back to their home country through the CBP Home App. Any illegal alien who uses the CBP Home App to self-deport will also receive a stipend of $1,000 dollars, paid after their return to their home country has been confirmed through the app. Self-deportation is a dignified way to leave the US and will allow illegal aliens to avoid being encountered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Even with the cost of the stipend, it is projected that the use of CBP Home will decrease the costs of a deportation by around 70 percent. Currently the average cost to arrest, detain, and remove an illegal alien is $17,121.”

“The first use of travel assistance has already proven successful. An illegal alien that the Biden Administration allowed into our country recently utilized the program to receive a ticket for a flight from Chicago to Honduras. Additional tickets have already been booked for this week and the following week,” says the Department of Homeland Security in a Monday press release and Jesus Christ, lol at all the careful explaining about how it’s actually cheaper for taxpayers this way.

Also, at no point does the release mention how DHS would prevent Chicago-area Honduran-American US citizens from simply lying about their status to get a free flight to their ancestral homeland and $1,000 spending money before booking another flight home a week or two later.

Even if they were going to be diligent about that, this still is a pretty good summary of the situation of where the Trump Regime is at and how far they are from the horseshit they sold to their cult about US Marines going door-to-door and dragging families out of their homes to be thrown on buses bound for mass internment camps: Free flights and a $1,000 stipend. Congrats, Trump fans.

Staten Island Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis needed a lot of breath and a lot of words to express her alternative theory on why convicted felon President Trump was unable to answer clearly on the question of whether he knows he has a duty to uphold the constitution. She could just instead say that the question from Kristen Welker was a fake news “gotcha” question and then also attack CNN’s John Berman for asking her about it when there are so many more important matters out there, like ending Critical Race Theory and protecting gas stoves from the forces of woke.

“Access to Alcatraz Island is via commercial ferry service. For ticket reservation call (415) 981-ROCK [415.981.7625] or go to www.alcatrazcitycruises.com. Once on the island you can stay as long as you wish up to the last ferry, which changes seasonally. Alcatraz is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day. Be aware that Alcatraz often sells out in advance. In summer and around holidays tickets can sell out a month or more in advance. Tickets go on sale 90 days in advance,” says the US National Park Service’s “Plan Your Visit” page on its website for Alcatraz, the notorious former maximum security prison in San Francisco Bay that held inmates until Attorney General Robert F Kennedy ordered it closed in 1963 and has since been converted into a museum.

The fact that the website is still functioning and the island itself appears to still be open for visitors as of Monday seems in tension with the directives of the presidential administration in which Robert F Kennedy Jr serves. For example, the BBC’s article headlined “Trump orders reopening of notorious Alcatraz prison,” characterizes the president’s Sunday Truth Social post expressing his intent to convert the island back to a federal prison as having had immediate effect. As such Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum should have at the very least already taken the website down and begun the paperwork necessary to transfer legal ownership of the island from the National Park Service back to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Prisons to allow them to begin the preliminary assessments on what work is required to bring the facility back online after 62 years of disuse.

That evidently no such actions have yet occurred could indicate that the president was not actually serious or, more likely, that if he had been serious he’s instead getting distracted by something else and will within days forget that he had ever expressed any such intent to reopen Alcatraz.

Describing the developments as historically significant, Reuters reports that Indian construction crews have begun work on expanding capacity at two hydroelectric dams upstream from Pakistan’s agricultural regions, a breach of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, an agreement to maintain the flow that has withstood three wars and numerous confrontations between the two nations.

Last month Indian dictator Narendra Modi’s regime suspended the treaty after Islamic militants suspected of ties to Pakistan’s intel agencies slaughtered 26 men at a tourist spot on the Indian side of the disputed Kashmir region. Islamabad responded by saying “Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan… will be considered as an act of war.” The headwaters of the Indus River supply as much as 80 percent of what’s needed to grow Pakistan’s food supply.

But again, the world was supposed to be at peace now that Trump’s back in office.

“I think Donald Trump thinks every day ‘how can I annoy the left?’ And every day, they rise to the bait. Awesome” – The top comment on the Fox News article “White House celebrates ‘Star Wars Day’ with AI image of muscular Trump wielding a lightsaber,” posted Sunday, the fanboy who wrote it going with the tried-and-true “He’s trolling you soytards” line to reaffirm support because that’s easier than arguing convincingly that he’s owning the libs by demonstrably making serious progress on lowering gas and grocery prices for all Americans. Deprived of that, they’re forced to work with what they’ve got: An AI image of Trump holding a lightsaber, tweeted by the White House’s account.

In honor of Star Wars Day, the White House posted an AI picture of President Trump holding a red lightsaber while wearing a Jedi robe and donning a ripped physique. https://t.co/lmEoU6YQYq

— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 5, 2025

The article itself is pretty funny in that the headline admits upfront that the flabby fuck’s ripped biceps are as real as the red lightsaber he wields in the pic. The Fox News keyboard jockey who slapped it together himself seems well aware of that and could be subtly engaging in something akin to “malicious compliance” with the propaganda network’s editorial directives, writing that in the replies to the post a Twitter user “asked X’s AI feature Grok what the meaning of a red lightsaber is in Star Wars. Those who follow the science fiction franchise will remember Darth Vader, Kylo Ren and others associated with the dark side or Sith powers used a red lightsaber of some sort.”

“Whether we are simply characters in an advanced virtual world is a much-debated theory, challenging previous thinking about the universe and our existence. The possibility that the entire universe is informational in nature and resembles a computational process is a popular theory among a number of well-known figures including Elon Musk. The thinking comes from within a branch of science known as information physics, which suggests physical reality is actually made up of structured information. In an article published in AIP Advances and included in the journal’s ‘Editor’s Picks’, a leading physicist from the University of Portsmouth, Dr Melvin Vopson, presents findings which indicate that gravity or gravitational force is the result of a computational process within the universe,” says the University of Portsmouth in a press release from last week.

“He suggests that gravity might actually be caused by how information about matter is organised in the universe. Using the second law of information dynamics, he indicates that matter and objects in space may be being pulled together because the universe is trying to keep information tidy and compressed. Dr Vopson said: ‘My findings in this study fit with the thought that the universe might work like a giant computer, or our reality is a simulated construct. Just like computers try to save space and run more efficiently, the universe might be doing the same. It’s a new way to think about gravity – not just as a pull, but as something that happens when the universe is trying to stay organised.’ Dr Vopson has previously published research suggesting that information has mass and that all elementary particles – the smallest known building blocks of the universe – store information about themselves, similar to the way cells, the building blocks of biological entities, have DNA.”

Maybe you have to read the whole paper to be able to turn into a cyberpunk warrior who can do all sorts of slow-motion acrobatic “wire-fu” moves while firing MP5 submachine guns at the forces who created the universe to imprison human minds to power their colossal machine civilization.

The Reich-y Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Verfassungschutz, the country’s top domestic intel agency for having accurately designated them an extremist group and thus subject to enhanced surveillance measures, the AP reports.

Two of the soldiers whom Florida MAGA Congressman Cory Mills listed as witnesses on his Bronze Star paperwork tell NOTUS that the credibly suspected girlfriend abuser and adulterer lied about his combat experience in Iraq and that he was full of shit about having saved their lives in firefights that occurred during the 2003 invasion. “He didn’t save my life,” Private First Class Joe Heit, cited by name on the recommendation form, told NOTUS. “I don’t recall him being there either.”

“No soldier writes their own DA Form 638. It is a recommendation for award and soldiers cannot recommend themselves. The form must be reviewed and signed by commanding officers,” Mills told NOTUS in a statement when asked why other soldiers would’ve gone on record to dispute it. He then did not answer who actually wrote the form, which says, for example of the several incidents cited, “During combat operations in Baghdad SGT Mills’ unit came to the aid of a friendly US Unit that was pinned down by intense enemy fire emanating from a building; bounding forward under murderous enemy fire SGT Mills team gained and maintained fire superiority on the enemy, entering the building SGT Mills Platoon Sergeant, SFC [Joe] Ferrand was grabbed by an enemy insurgent, jumping into action SGT Mills threw himself at the enemy insurgent and subdued him.”

Ferrand did not speak with NOTUS but wrote in an official complaint to the Pentagon that the description of Mills’ involvement is a “fabrication” and that the incel-ish Floridian “was not involved in any claims that Cory Mills makes about me,” adding that it’s “false…The act never took place.”

Mills touts his Bronze Star in his campaign ads and on his congressional website, which says that being his being an “an Army Combat Veteran and Bronze Star recipient,” shaped his “perspective on the importance of preserving constitutional liberties and defending against all threats.”