“After extensive analysis and testing, NASA has identified the technical cause of unexpected char loss across the Artemis I Orion spacecraft’s heat shield. Engineers determined as Orion was returning from its uncrewed mission around the Moon, gases generated inside the heat shield’s ablative outer material called Avcoat were not able to vent and dissipate as expected.”

“This allowed pressure to build up and cracking to occur, causing some charred material to break off in several locations. ‘Our early Artemis flights are a test campaign, and the Artemis I test flight gave us an opportunity to check out our systems in the deep space environment before adding crew on future missions,’ said Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator, Moon to Mars Program Office, NASA Headquarters in Washington. ‘The heat shield investigation helped ensure we fully understand the cause and nature of the issue, as well as the risk we are asking our crews to take when they venture to the Moon,'” says NASA in a press release on how they’re going to avoid serving America some deep fried astronaut on the return flight from the next moon landing.

Texas MAGA Congressman Chip “Colonel Sanders” Roy on Friday defended would-be Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth by saying “we’ve had some indiscretions in our past and things like that.”

Weird because we’re unaware of Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio ever having paid a settlement to a woman and had her sign an NDA to stay quiet. We would be surprised if Rubio gets fewer than 60 votes. In all likelihood it’ll be more than 70. Even that might be lowballing it. They tend to be kind of clubby like that. But there are at least a few other Trump nominees from outside Congress who are going to have confirmation hearings that last a half hour and more than a handful of Dems vote for them. Pete Hegseth is not one of them. It’ll be a shitshow, if he even makes it.

“The Office of the Prime Minister wishes to address recent reports regarding a proposal from the Trump transition team in the United States for The Bahamas to accept deportation flights of migrants from other countries. This matter was presented to the Government of The Bahamas but was reviewed and firmly rejected by the Prime Minister. The Bahamas simply does not have the resources to accommodate such a request. The Prime Minister priorities remain focused on addressing the concerns of The Bahamian people. Since the Prime Minister’s rejection of this proposal, there has been no further engagement or discussions with the Trump transition team or any other entity regarding this matter. The Government of The Bahamas remains committed in its position,” says the office of the Bahamian Prime Minister in a statement.

Just two days before a runoff between ultranationalist Calin Georgescu and normie liberal Elena Lasconi, Romania’s constitutional court on Friday voided the results of the first round of the presidential election due to Russian interference efforts backing Georgescu, the BBC reports.

Outgoing Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said the court’s decision was “the only correct solution after the declassification of the documents… which show that the result of the Romanians’ vote was blatantly distorted as a result of Russia’s intervention”. Georgescu, a fucking freak who worships a fascist, antisemitic World War II-era militia (the ones that fought the Nazis. A different fascist, antisemitic militia collaborated with them during the occupation) and was so extreme he got kicked out of a different ultranationalist party, rose from obscurity to take a shock lead in the first round last month, winning 22.94 percent to Lasconi’s 19.18 percent. Georgescu had a serious shot at winning given that the other right winger, who came in fourth, had endorsed him, while Lasconi was expected to have serious trouble pulling support from the third place Ciolacu’s ceneter-left base.

It’s not clear when the next election will be held or if Georgescu will be somehow disqualified. The law allows for annulments such as this one, stipulating that a new first round would need to be held by the 22nd. The court however ordered an entire new presidential campaign, so who the hell knows how long that’s going to take. Vladimir Putin’s definitely fucking pissed, no doubt.

“Pete Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep, much more so than the Fake News would have you believe. He was a great student – Princeton/Harvard educated – with a Military state of mind. He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defense Defense, one who leads with charisma and skill. Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!” posted convicted felon President-Elect Trump on Friday, evidently determined to see Hegseth through to the end where senators have to go on record with whether or not they want to hand the keys to the world’s most powerful military to an alcoholic who was fired from two astroturfed political campaign groups, blew up two marriages with his drunken whoring, has a Neo-Nazi slogan tattooed on his arm, paid off a rape accuser, and had his mom make phone calls to vouch for his character.

Was looking pretty touch-and-go there for a few days, but it’s clear that – until he does something stupid to piss off the Orange Autocrat and/or some billionaire Mar-a-Lago member who never served in the military buys a shit ton of worthless digital tokens from the Trump crypto exchange as part of his pitch to run the Pentagon – Pete Hegseth is still King Donald’s man for the job. For now.

Peeved Peruvian prosecutors postulate plastic proboscis procedure perfidy perpetrated per President oh shit her name is Dina Boluarte and the whole P thing is ruined. Also the “per” didn’t make a lot of sense. Anyway, Bloomberg reports that Boluarte, already under criminal investigation for allegedly accepting Rolexes from who the fuck knows, faces another shitshow for allegedly secretly getting at least one nose job while she was supposed to be presidenting.

The line from her office is that she’s never taken any time off for any medical procedures, elective or not, but apparently former Prime Minister Alberto Otarola didn’t get that memo and acknowledged that Boluarte had undergone a “rhinoplasty” for “respiratory issues” in testimony to lawmakers this week. So, yeah, that guy fucked up. Probably thought he was helping by making it sound like Boluarte was getting a blockage removed instead of making her schnoz look more attractive.

Boluarte’s approval ratings are in the mid-single digits, making her the most unpopular national leader in the world in the places where reliable-ish polling exists. There undoubtedly at least several warlords in Africa or the Caucasus that would have higher approval ratings if Gallup could reach out to them and somehow get honest answers without fear of being hacked to death with a machete for registering disapproval of their warlord. Boluarte would do well to resign and claim asylum with one of these warlords in exchange for the Rolexes and probably her government-owned private jet.

Otherwise she’s probably headed for a stay in one of Peru’s famous post-presidential suites.

Worried, and justifiably so, that convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s mass deportation plan means that his stormtroopers will simply march deportees into Mexico regardless of whether they were actually born there – and probably even regardless of whether they entered the United States via the southern border if we’re being real here, could totally see the fat fuck simply ordering ICE to dump visa overstayers from Asia or Africa there too – Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday told media she’s looking to reach a deal with El Coño Gordo Naranja to ensure that only Mexicans are deported to Mexico, CNN reports on the headaches this woman has to deal with.

“We hope to have an agreement with the Trump administration,” Sheinbaum said during her daily press briefing, adding Mexico is “in solidarity with everyone, but our main function is to receive Mexicans.” Sheinbaum said she’s setting up meetings with the governors of border states Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to work on how we “can agree on how to receive our compatriots… We hope [mass deportations] don’t happen, but if they do, we will be ready to receive them.” Holy shit this is going to be such a freaking mess.

Also on Thursday, the Panamanian Foreign Ministry put out a similar if more forceful statement on the matter. “In light of international law, we have no obligation to accept deportees of nationalities other than Panamanian. We wish to maintain relations with the United States always within the framework of mutual respect. This Foreign Ministry clearly understands that our main mission is to protect the interests of the Republic of Panama,” the ministry said, per CNN. Just by virtue of geography, it would seem Panama can say that more confidently than Mexico since the country doesn’t actually border the US and can turn away planes and boats loaded with deportees.

A GREAT HONOR, THANK YOU! pic.twitter.com/ALfxh0BDX5

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2024

Former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr Anthony Fauci and soon-to-be-former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith are, along with former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and California Senator-Elect Adam Schiff, are among those on a list of potential preemptive pardons for President Joe Biden to short circuit convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s planned retribution tour, the New York Times reports on some good trolling in the works.

House Republicans on Thursday blocked a Dem resolution to force the Ethics Committee to release their report on now former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s statutory rape party lifestyle, CNN reports.

This was a full House move to push it to a vote, not within the committee itself, which is reportedly still considering the matter… and the floor vote was to refer it back to them. Whether they actually end up voting again is unclear but it’s hard to say it matters even remotely as much as it did the last time the twats moved to protect Rapey McForehead. He dropped his bid for Attorney General, isn’t coming back to the House, and it’ll be a while if ever before he runs for office again. Of course the report should be released. Yet the damage it was supposed to do in the immediate term is done.

“A Novato cyclist was killed last month after swallowing a bee while cycling. Phil Heiman was a 69 year-old former superintendent of water treatment in Marin County,” says the lede to a story by California CW affiliate KRON. Heiman died on November 11th, but the station picked up the story on Thursday, citing the obituary that said the man “lived doing what he loved until the very end.”

Exactly how the bee killed Heiman is unclear, like if he was allergic and the fucker stung him while inside his throat or if he just straight up choked to death on it. Either way it’s godawful and this isn’t meant to be a Darwin Award-type article like about that dipshit Kentucky Republican who drove his ride-on mower into an empty pool or the United Heathcare CEO getting canceled for his cruelty where you don’t have to feel bad about it. There’s also zero indication whatsoever that Heiman was anything other than a dedicated public servant who took water treatment seriously, unlike former Anchorage, Alaska Mayor Dave Bronson and former Richmond, Vermont water superintendent Kendall Chamberlain, both of whom unilaterally turned off the fluoride supply because it makes you gay like the frogs in that Alex Jones story or whatever those fucking mutants believe these days.

So we guess the takeaway is to just be stay alert and try to breathe through your nose when out on a bike ride. It can happen to you too, even when you’re just minding your own beeswax.

Paradigm-shifting billionaire unicorn Elon Musk and maverick rock star disruptrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are on Capitol Hill to coordinate an ideation strategy with Republican stakeholders to create a holistic ecosystem of a vertical encouraging data-driven engagement and thought amplification within the government efficiency hack space, creating an epic new multi-dimensional action-sphere in which outmoded dinosaurs of bureaucrats and lifers will be deleted.

A Chesterfield County, Virginia shoplifter’s plan to steal $1,400 worth of shit from a Walmart store and make good on his escape was met with certain complications on Sunday, ones that law enforcement officials say could have been foreseen given that there were roughly 50 police officers and sheriff’s deputies present at the store for a children’s charity event at the time, WTVR reports.

“We had 30-40 marked patrol cars in the parking lot. When we found his vehicle, it was facing where our cars were parked, so he would have had to see them. It seems it just didn’t matter to him,” Lt James Lamb of the Chesterfield County Police told the station of 32 year-old criminal mastermind Hector Velazquez Maldonado’s planning abilities. Lamb and the others were inside the store for the local patrolman’s association’s “Shop with a Cop” day, in which officers and deputies walk the aisles with underprivileged children and use association funds to purchase Christmas toys they pick out.
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“A member of the staff at Walmart came up to us and informed us they had a shoplifting in progress,” Lamb said of the fucking idiot. “Between the sheriff’s department and police officers we had about 50 uniform personnel at the store. As we approached from different directions, he tried to escape out the back of the store where he was apprehended. I think he was stunned.”

Maldonado was already wanted on additional warrants for larceny and failure to appear.

A failed candidate in Gainesville, Florida’s 2022 mayoral election believed by law enforcement to be a member of The Twelve Tribes, a racist, extremist Christian death cult, is charged in two separate murders in Georgia and Tennessee, one of which was the particularly gruesome killing of a homeless guy sleeping in an alleyway, The Gainesville Sun reports on 39 year-old Adam Rosenthal’s rampage.

Rosenthal’s data on VoterRecords.com lists him as “unaffiliated” and his 2022 candidate op-ed in the Sun titled “Gainesville can become the nation’s next smart city” features a pic of him with golden glitter in his beard and pledges to build a community “powered by love — love for yourself, your friend, your enemy and your community. Love is the only force powerful enough to transform your enemies by making them your friends. It’s an eternal energy that shapes everything we do for ourselves and each other. If we can harness that love, everything is possible,” so it’d be hard to call him a conservative if not for the Christian cult and murdering at least one guy with a cinder block.

Rosenthal is charged with doing just that to Albert Kenneth Knight Jr in Macon, Georgia in May. The charges were filed in that case after Rosenthal was arrested in the death of Darren Gambre, whose body was found in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee on November 26th. No details on method.

Like if it was a yes then Joni would’ve just said it. Wasn’t a no either, but in the very couched language was an indication that she’s not the only one apparently hinting that the whole having his mom call senators to get them to vote for her son wasn’t exactly the game-changer Pete needed.

You know who did get an endorsement for the job? “If people are looking for qualified alternatives, which apparently some people are, she certainly is one, and her reputation in the Senate is impeccable,” Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis told NOTUS about Ernst. “If you’re looking for someone who could be easy to confirm and who could hit the ground running, she is certainly that.”

Without saying whether he would vote for Ernst, Dem Rick Blumenthal agreed, saying “I’ve worked with her, and she is a person of tremendous competence, character and moral values.”

Having turned heads and bitten off more than a few from the thoraxes of honeybees in North America over the past few years, the Asian murder hornet is now creating a buzz in Europe. At least two pairs of the vicious flying nightmare monsters have been confirmed spotted in northern Spain since 2022, NBC News reports citing a fieldwork by entomologists tracking the beasts’ movements.

“Here in northern Spain, we have another species of Asian hornets that is called Vespa Veluntina, and it’s causing serious damages to the beekeeping sector, so the presence of another Asian hornet can magnify the bad affects,” said biologist Omar Sanchez, lead author of the study, adding that his team are trying to track the nest(s) and destroy it before they spread. “It’s a little bit tricky because this species makes their nest under the ground — more than 30 meters — so it is not easy to find.”

Officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo say they’re “on alert” after at least 71 people in a remote rural region of the country were sickened and died of an unknown “flu-like” illness in which the victims suffered fever, headache, cough, and anemia, the Associated Press reports.

“The disease resembles a respiratory disease but it is difficult to talk about how it is transmitted before the results of the analysis of the collected samples,” Congolese Health Minister Roger Kamba said. At least 380 people have been infected with the illness, but it’s unclear whether or not they recovered or are still convalescing. Kamba said it took two days for inspectors to reach the area.

Hopefully future Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and his senior adviser Joe Rogan will come up with a crystal or mercury-based treatment for the disease soon. We don’t want to get caught off-guard again by another Deep State plandemic meant to curtial our freedoms.

Thank you @SenJoniErnst — for your service to our country and commitment to this important process. https://t.co/Emosseba3Y

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) December 4, 2024

Following like five paragraphs of congratulatory self-suckery for one of the members of their team on an internal promotion at the outlet, the actual political news part of Thursday morning’s Politico Playbook newsletter leads with the questions of where Republican Iowa Senator Joni Ernst is at with rapey binge-drinker former Fox News host Pete Hegseth’s bid to become the next Secretary of Defense, noting that all the media have are the above tweet with no indication of where she lands.

“We hear Trump himself is eager to get a readout of how Hegseth’s meeting yesterday with Ernst went, knowing full-well that everyone was looking to her – the combat veteran and advocate for survivors of sexual assault in the military – to determine whether Hegseth stands any shot at surviving,” Playbook writes as if the replies to Ernst from MAGAcels such as Joey Mannarino telling her “You are IRRELEVANT. Your job is to confirm him and shut the fuck up,” weren’t enough pressure.

Add to that the fact that Ernst, herself a veteran and a victim of sexual assault, has been mentioned in multiple reports as a possible replacement for Hegseth, and yeah, she’s definitely in a pickle.

It’s not clear yet if Penelope Hegseth reached out to Ernst to say her son is a good boy.

Separately Axios reports the Orange God Emperor “isn’t working the phones for Pete Hegseth in his hour of need, leaving the embattled Department of Defense nominee to press his own case to skeptical senators,” with one telling them “I don’t think [Hegseth’s bid is] going anywhere.”

NYPD sources say the words “deny,” “depose,” and “defend” were written on bullet casings found at the scene of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s early Wednesday morning assassination in Manhattan, the New York Post reports, linking it to a book, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it,” by Rutgers Law Professor Jay Feinman.

Other details made public: The shooter waited at a Starbucks across the street before spotting Thompson and approaching him as he walked toward a Hilton hotel where a conference was being held. Cops say they’ve recovered a cup the assassin dropped in the garbage inside the store and presumably are examining it for DNA evidence. They also found a cellphone in a nearby alleyway but aren’t sure yet if it’s definitely linked to the suspect. A search warrant was obtained for its contents.

Cops have also described the shooter as proficient in firearms given that the pistol he used appeared to jam during the attack but the assassin rapidly cleared it and resumed firing.

“On 7 October 2023, Israel embarked on a military offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip (Gaza) of unprecedented magnitude, scale and duration. Since then, it has carried out relentless aerial and ground attacks, many of them with large explosive weapons, which have caused massive damage and flattened entire neighbourhoods and cities across Gaza, along with their life-supporting infrastructure, agricultural land, and cultural and religious sites and symbols deeply engrained in Palestinians’ collective memory. Israel’s military offensive has killed and seriously injured tens of thousands of Palestinians, including thousands of children, many of them in direct or indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. Israel has forcibly displaced 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants, many of them multiple times, into ever-shrinking, ever-changing pockets of land that lacked basic infrastructure, forcing people to live in conditions that exposed them to a slow and calculated death,” says Amnesty International in a report accusing Netanyahu’s regime of genocide, which is correct… but also fails to mention why they embarked on a military offensive on October 7, 2023. Leaving that out might ruffle some feathers, and justifiably so.