“I just spoke to Chairman Xi Jinping of China. The call was a very good one for both China and the USA. It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately.”

“We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!” posted convicted felon President-Elect Trump on Friday, happy to have been flattered and worked by the communist dictator.

Chinese Communist soybean processors have been turning away from US suppliers in favor of Brazil’s cheaper product in what Reuters reports is a preemptive strike against convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s anticipated trade war, at the expense of American farmers.

“Chinese crushers are now booking Brazilian cargoes for February and March shipment,” a trader in Singapore told Reuters. “Both state-owned and private crushers, all of them are taking Brazilian beans. It is a 100 percent shift to Brazil.” The US share of soybean supply to China’s state-owned and “private” industries has been steadily declining over the years, as in 2016 it was 40 percent, now down to 18 percent in 2024, even though nobody has done more for farmers than Trump, lol.

All this said, Reuters notes that beyond the not-absolutely-massive price difference of $420/ton for Brazilian soybeans vs $451/ton American there’s one key advantage US farmers have, at least as far as the Chicom government is concerned: “While private buyers turn to Brazilian supplies, traders said state stockpiler Sinograin is still in the market for US soybeans, which are preferred for stockpiling due to their higher oil content,” they write. Question now is how sticky is that preference for “higher oil content” if Trump demands even more hardship for his loyal farmers.

BREAKING NEWS: Rep. Mike Lawler tells Maria he's looking into a run for New York Governor pic.twitter.com/VW5hBK95MS

— Mornings with Maria (@MorningsMaria) January 17, 2025

An anonymous House Republican tells NOTUS that Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington’s list of massive proposed spending cuts laid out in a memo circulated last week – $2.3 trillion off Medicaid, $479 billion off Medicare, $151 billion off the Affordable Care Act, $468 billion from Biden’s climate policies, among other draconian cuts – are like “a list a kid would send to Santa when he was five.”

“I want a pony, I want an airplane, I want a truck,” the member continued, basically calling the chair mentally retarded and there’s no chance of getting 218 votes for a budget with any of that shit.

“He is all over the place and doesn’t understand what the fuck he’s doing,” a “senior GOP aide” said of Arrington. It’s not clear why the dullard Texan still holds the important post given that two years ago Kevin McCarthy told allies Arrington is “incompetent” and he has “no confidence” in him.

“We’re so fucked” with Arrington helming the budget, another anonymous GOP member told NOTUS.

Nearly 200 paintings by Hunter Biden, valued at “millions of dollars,” have been destroyed over the last few days amid the wildfires as the building they were stored in burned down amid the Palisades Fire still ravaging Los Angeles, sources tell the New York Post. The First Son’s benefactor, rich guy Kevin Morris, told the Post the report is “another untrue story about Hunter Biden,” but did not elaborate on why it was not true. The Post does make shit up sometimes, so who knows.

“We demand that the FBI preserve and retain all records, documents, and information on the now closing DEI Office – Never should have been opened and, if it was, should have closed long ago.”

“Why is it that they’re closing one day before the Inauguration of a new Administration? The reason is, CORRUPTION!” posted convicted felon President-Elect Trump on Thursday, while linking to some stupid Mediaite story that wasn’t even the original reporting about the DEI office shuttering.

“Here in Louisiana, porn sites are required to verify age and the State has an app in place that makes it very simple. We also require photo ID when voting. Guess maybe we’re not so backward as some might think” – Top comment on the TownHall.com article “Supreme Court to Decide Whether Texas Can Impose Age Verification Requirements on Porn Sites,” posted Thursday afternoon.

You can read it like this guy simply knows about the verification process secondhand. Or just roll with the near-certainty that he’s sharing his personal lived experience with how it works. According to The 19th, what he’s referring to as an “app” is not specifically purpose-built to verify the ages of masturbators but it’s actually the state’s digital drivers’ license app, which maybe has some kind of API auth token component going through a browser login portal. Not the worst setup as opposed to, say, uploading a pic of one’s license to the porn site itself, as the state app’s data is likely encrypted.

But holy shit, lol. There’s about zero chance this asshole or any of those who upvoted him did not scream bloody murder over people having to present a COVID vax card to sit down and eat at a fucking Applebee’s in 2021, now they’re suddenly cool with the government potentially knowing EXACTLY which porn they jerk off to? Is it simply because the governor’s a far right Republican that they suddenly trust him to protect their freedoms? What in Christ’s name can they point to as a reason to rest assured that the browsing data isn’t being logged after the verification step?

MAGA state lawmakers in Indiana and Iowa are making noises about getting rural edge counties from Illinois and Minnesota, respectively, to carve themselves off and leech onto their states.

In Indiana, state House Speaker Todd Huston on Thursday introduced a bill encouraging nearly three dozen counties that have already voted in various referenda to secede from Illinois to join the Hoosier State instead, the Danville Commercial-News reports. “We think instead of seceding and creating a 51st state, they should just join us,” Huston said while introducing his legislation, HB 1008, to establish the Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission. “We match their priorities, their interests and we’re excited about having that conversation this year. And to all of our neighbors to the west, we hear your frustrations and then invite you to join us in a low-cost, low-tax Indiana.”

In Iowa, state Senator Mike Bousselot this week tweeted he was introducing a bill to have the Hawkeye State buy up the nine Minnesota counties bordering to the north, per the Rochester Post-Bulletin. “Make Minnesota Iowa Again! Our new Iowans, former MN residents, will have lower income, sales, business taxes. A more farm friendly state. And a better managed state. Gov Walz may say it’s just ‘rocks and cows’ but we see opportunity!” Bousselot wrote, referring to Walz’s 2017 comment when he said the southern part of the state was “mostly rocks and cows.” And as fucking stupid as this assclown sounds with “Make Minnesota Iowa Again!” it’s technically true, based on historical fact. Until 1846 the pre-statehood Iowa Territory did encompass the parts of present-day Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, all nine of these present-day counties included in that jurisdiction.

Air Force veteran saw alien, ‘nonhuman’ egg-shaped aircraft while working for secret UFO retrieval program: report https://t.co/BgaqgcTn68 pic.twitter.com/xehrmoEGD1

— New York Post (@nypost) January 16, 2025

“Plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea’ Moss, Defendant Rudolph W Giuliani, and Intervenor Andrew Giuliani (collectively, the ‘Parties’) respectfully submit this letter-motion to inform the Court that Plaintiffs and Defendant have executed a settlement agreement (‘Agreement’) that, once certain conditions are met, would fully resolve all issues currently scheduled for trial, including the claims of Intervenor Andrew H Giuliani, and would result in the conclusion of all litigation currently pending between and among the Parties. Accordingly, the Parties respectfully request that the Court adjourn the trial scheduled for January 21, 2025, and the continued contempt hearing currently scheduled for January 29, 2025, to dates on or after February 25, 2025, to permit the Parties to fully implement the Agreement. The Parties will promptly notify the Court upon full satisfaction of the terms of the Agreement,” says Rudy’s lawyer in a letter to the judge after his client fucked off on Thursday.

Hard to imagine they didn’t get what they wanted in what’s now their second lawsuit against the alcoholic shitbrain former New York City mayor. Also note the “once certain conditions are met.” The whole reason for this trial was because he wasn’t meeting conditions imposed by the judgment in the first, like selling off all of his shit to at least partially satisfy the $148 million he owes them.

In an interview earlier this week disgraced former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told the New York Times he’s “feeling like a kid again with Trump’s invite” to Monday’s freezing cold inauguration in DC, and he’s “fired up. I’m not even taking Viagra anymore. Trump’s gesture is something to be proud of, right? Who’s Trump? The most important guy in the world.”

Then on Thursday the Brazilian Supreme Court denied Bolsonaro’s request to have his passport back while out on bail for a number of felony offenses related to his misrule of the country. So no, Bolosonaro will not be attending the Orange God Emperor’s re-coronation ceremony.

MAGA incel Georgia state Senator Colton Moore, famous for his ridiculous attempts to derail Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s now-self-derailed case against convicted felon President-Elect Trump and his crew of fuckwits, was slammed to the ground and arrested Thursday as he tried and failed to gain entry into the chamber for Governor Brian Kemp’s State of The State Address. Moore is excommunicado from the Georgia GOP for his past declarations of jihad against Kemp and was barred from attending the speech by state House Speaker Jon Burns, leading to this violent arrest.

Still stinging from the end of his quest to retrieve a hard drive containing $600 million worth of Bitcoin from under a mountain of “rubbish” he had mistakenly thrown out circa 2012, Welsh crypto loser James Howells tells the New York Post that maybe convicted felon President-Elect Trump, who is pro-crypto much more than he understands anything about crypto, can somehow intervene.

“So it is game over. I’ve not given up and will never surrender but it is looking pretty bleak,” said Howells “I don’t know what else to do. Maybe Donald Trump could help make something happen. I would certainly cut Trump in on the deal if he could help. I am appealing to him and anyone else who can help sort this madness. I’m half joking of course but it would be great if he did.”

To recap: Howells mined 8,000 Bitcoins back in 2009 when the crypto was a worthless novelty, stuck the keys to the coins on a hard drive, mistakenly threw out the hard drive in 2012 or so, then the next year began harassing the local government to allow him to conduct a search for the likely corroded-beyond-all-use drive in a landfill, and then 12 years later was told to piss off by the UK’s highest court. It’s not clear why he didn’t just start tunneling into the landfill himself in like 2015 or whenever the local government refused to budge, he might’ve found it by now.

Alcoholic shitbrain Rudy Giuliani was supposed to be in federal court Thursday in Manhattan to testify in his defense in a trial over whether victorious defamation plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss are entitled to his Yankees World Series champ rings and some other valuable possessions to satisfy the $148 million judgment the former Georgia election workers won against him in 2023.

But he’s not there, according to Inner City Press’s Matthew Russell Lee, who writes that Judge Lewis Liman has adjourned court until 1pm, by which time Rudy will be four hours late. If he shows up.

Meidas Touch’s Ron Filipkowski pointed out that at 10:44 AM EDT, when Rudy was already 1 hour and 44 minutes late, he posted a clip of his dog… At Mar-a-Lago. “Vinny loves hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, but he’s ready to spend a lot more time in Washington, DC over the course of the next four years in support of his favorite President-Donald J Trump!🇺🇸” Rudy wrote in the tweet.

National Zero has written over the years that this or that utterance or transgression would be it, that a judge would toss Rudy in the clink for contempt, only for more straws to suddenly materialize after what had seemed was the last one. So instead of “OH THIS IS IT, RUDY’S SO FREAKING SCREWED THIS TIME, FOR REAL” let’s instead just note that this does appear to be the first time Captain 9/11 outright fucked off from appearing and without any explanation. And might be in Florida.

The state of the southern border with Mexico, described variously as a “crisis,” an “invasion,” a “disaster,” an “insurrection” and other hyperbolic horseshit by political actors for the last decade is now suddenly one of placid idyll and happiness, even before the one destined to end the madness has yet to formally reassume power, according to Fox News anchortwit Maria Bartiromo.

Former House Speaker and California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi will on Monday stay warm at her home in DC, maybe play mah-jong on her phone or do a crossword puzzle while sipping tea at the same time most other members freeze their asses off outside the Capitol, ABC News reports.

Heels-wearing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced he will be appointing mentally unstable Attorney General Ashley Moody to replace former (?) Senator and soon-to-be-US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as half of the Sunshine State’s team of assholes in the chamber.

What happened between when Lara Trump said she was interested and then walked that back would be interesting to learn, specifically in what way DeSantis told her to fuck off and stop asking.

Leading Thursday’s slate of four simultaneous confirmation hearings is Treasury Secretary pick Scott Bessent, an openly gay former Soros lieutenant who apparently literally got the nod for slapping together a graph (some of it in comic sans) validating convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s bullshit claims that the stock market’s gains in 2023 and 2024 corresponded to his poll numbers, that investors were pricing in a Trump win. Probably silly to expect that to come up at all in the hearing but the main reason for putting this one on top – even though it won’t start until 10:30 EDT, a half hour after the others – is the subject of tariffs. Senators will be keen to know how Bessent plans to manage the Orange God Emperor’s pledged intent to fuck up the economy by levying massive price increases on all sorts of consumer goods made with foreign components.

Researchers at the University of Alberta this week announced they’ve determined that it was indeed a small meteorite that struck the pavement outside of Prince Edward Island man Joe Velaidum’s home in July 2024, just minutes after he had been standing in the exact spot, the CBC reports on Velaidum’s missed opportunity to become world famous as there are no documented occurrences of a human being getting killed by a piece of rock falling from outer space anywhere in history.

“The shocking thing for me is that I was standing right there a couple of minutes right before this impact,” Velaidum told CBC News. “If I’d have seen it, I probably would’ve been standing right there, so it probably would’ve ripped me in half,” he continued, evidently considering himself lucky to be alive rather than unlucky to have his name echo across history as the first ever victim of such an impact. Him and all the dinosaurs who died when a much bigger bolide smashed into the Earth 65 million years ago. Just think of all the would-be future Trivial Pursuit cards bearing his name.

“How does one interpret that, except… with wonder and with awe?” Veladium said, pondering the impact itself rather than what could have been if had destiny collided with him on his driveway.

Convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s new regime plans to initiate a “light speed” mass deportation starting the moment the fat fuck “puts his hand on that Bible and takes the oath of office,” bald reichsminister Stephen Miller has been “boasting” per the Washington Post.

The actual logistical reality of that is the subject of a long examination by the Post. To summarize it, the article says it’s going to be, let’s say, difficult for them to round up millions of people.