“Moderate” Republican California Congressman John Duarte told Axios on Tuesday he’s conceded to Dem Adam Gray in the final uncalled House race of 2024, leaving the GOP with just a 217 to 215 majority for the first few months until Matt Gaetz, Mike Waltz, and Elise Stefanik can be replaced.

Let the salsabration begin again! In a story titled “Is Chi-Chi’s coming back? 20 years after fatal Pennsylvania outbreak, Chi-Chi’s may return” the Beaver County Times reports that Hormel Foods, the owners of the defunct Tex-Mex chain’s intellectual property and still market it as a brand for salsa and other Mexican snack foods products, have okayed a return after a deadly hepatitis A outbreak traced to green onions served at a location in the town of Monaco in Beaver County.

“For Beaver County residents, Chi-Chi’s holds a unique place in local history. At its peak, Chi-Chi’s operated more than 200 stores, but that number was down by about half in the early 2000s. When the outbreak happened, Chi-Chi’s had already been in a tailspin and was shedding locations in a bid to stay afloat,” the Times wrote. Yeah that sure is a unique place in local history. “There’s no word yet on where the new Chi-Chi’s restaurants would be located or when they would open,” the paper’s report continues and yeah they probably won’t be relaunching in the area given that history.

Chi-Chi’s is the second major brand to have collapsed in ignominy in the early 2000s reported to be gearing up for a relaunch this week, following the bizarre and questionable resurfacing of Enron.

Several Fox News employees tell NBC News that former Fox and Friends weekend host Pete Hegseth showed up to work drunk and stinking of booze at least a dozen times since he started on the show in 2017, one of them saying it was as recently as last month that the rapey white nationalist showed up with the Irish Flu before going on camera to spew right wing bullshit.

“Everyone would be talking about it behind the scenes before he went on the air,” a former Fox employee said. Worried about how being Secretary of Defense is a lot more demanding than sitting on a couch and talking to angry racist boomers, one staffer said “for the sake of national security, I really hope he has stopped drinking. Another said flat out that Hegseth “should not be secretary of defense. His drinking should be disqualifying.” But the Nazi tattoos aren’t, we guess.

Anyway, this probably explains a lot about why Fox isn’t defending Hegseth on air, they’re ignoring him altogether, per CNN’s Brian Stelter, concluding that with just a handful of mentions, most of them about that fake pipe bomb threat and one anchor making a stray comment that he’s “headed for a tough confirmation,” leading Stelter to conclude that “Fox has insulated its conservative audience from reports that might dim their perception of Hegseth and Trump, instead offering viewers a safe space where their existing beliefs are reinforced by sympathetic hosts and guests.”

Well maybe that wasn’t the most novel insight about Fox since it applies to pretty much every single second of their programming (when Jessica Tarlov, Neil Cavuto, or the handful of other non-MAGAs aren’t talking) with or without this Hegseth shitshow. Still has to sting a little extra that one of their own is facing an ever-steeper path to boozing and fucking on the job at the Pentagon.

Separately the Wall Street Journal reports the Senate GOP have “signaled the next few days could be critical for determining whether Pete Hegseth has enough support to be confirmed,” which sure sounds similar to what they said when Matt Gaetz’s bid was similarly circling the drain.

To have been nominated by President-Elect @realDonaldTrump to serve as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration is the honor of a lifetime. Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully… pic.twitter.com/bvNF8m9Bh4

— Chad Chronister (@ChadChronister) December 3, 2024

Convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s team of shitbag lawyers on Tuesday put together a greatest hits album of their histrionic whining from over the years in what appears to be the final motion to dismiss the 34 count Manhattan conviction, a filing rife with phrases like “With respect to Presidential immunity, it would be egregious and unlawful for this Court10 hold the prospect of a 2029 sentencing over President Trump’s head while he continues hisservice to this Country,” “The exceedingly weak nature of DANYs evidence supports President Trump’s motion,” and “President Trump’s civic and financial contributions to this City and the Nation are too numerous to count.”

What happens next we don’t know. Ideally sentencing should be withheld until 2029. We shall see.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol acceded to the National Assembly’s vote to overturn his declaration of martial law early Wednesday local time, withdrawing troops from the legislative center in Seoul and ordered his cabinet to convene and vote on it, the final step to ending the state of emergency the crazy asshole had called over his tanking political standing, ABC News reports.

“The troops deployed for martial law have been withdrawn,” was the only quote from Yoon after the vote appearing in ABC’s article. It’s not clear how many members of Yoon’s own conservative People Power Party had voted against martial law, but the number wasn’t small. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and party chair Lee Jae-myung were among other PPP figures vehemently opposed to the declaration with Lee calling it an “unconstitutional” measure that “goes against the people. Tanks, armored vehicles and soldiers with guns and swords will soon control the country,” while Oh sought to reassure Seoulites that he was going to do his “best to protect the daily lives of citizens,” after footage of tense confrontations outside the legislature between troops and locals had spread.

So yeah, Yoon’s probably about to go through some things. Some politically humiliating things.

“I think some of these articles are very disturbing. He obviously has a chance to defend himself here, but some of this stuff is it’s going to be difficult. You know, time will tell. I like Pete… Some of the things have to be addressed… I mean, what we want to do is make sure that we have good order and discipline. Been in the military for over 30 years… Leadership comes at the top. And I want to make sure that every young woman who joins military feels respected,” said confirmed bachelor Senator Lindsey Graham to CNN’s Alan He on Tuesday, making it sound like not at all a sure thing for Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be sitting in the Secretary of Defense’s office come February.

In a case that MAGA shitbags knowingly used footage of to propagate the lie that the Springfield, Ohio Haitian community were eating people’s cats, a Canton woman was sentenced to a year in prison, plus another 18 months for a probation violation, for stomping on the head of an innocent feline and then consuming its flesh in the disturbing August 16th incident, WKYC reports.

The video of 27 year-old maniac Allexis Ferrell’s depraved act made national news weeks before the MAGA propaganda industrial complex appropriated it to serve convicted felon now-President-Elect Trump and his couchfucking sidekick JD Vance’s narrative about widespread savagery toward animals, but they didn’t let that get in the way of claiming it happened 140 miles to the southwest in Springfield and that the American-born Ferrell was a Haitian immigrant. It’s not even like the pic of the Black dude carrying a dead goose was taken in Columbus weeks earlier where some Reddit user had to come forward and say it was just something wacky they saw randomly one day. The disinfo experts plucked that one from an obscure feed and it took a week for the OP to try to rebut it.

And it took actual reporting to expose that the cat was in the basement the whole time that one lady had been calling the police to claim it had been abducted by a Haitian and that the person who was poaching geese from the park was a white male Republican. But because it felt true or that even if it wasn’t true it “spoke to a larger point” that only Donald Trump can stop them from eating the dogs, eating the cats, eating the pets, none of the facts ever mattered. Some people are just racist twats and want to believe that law-abiding, gainfully employed Haitian refugees are savages.

Great breakdown on what’s happening in South Korea

As I suspected, the sitting President has a very low 19% approval rating and now he’s gotten desperate

But South Korea has a Deep State too so who knows who the bad guys really are in this situation https://t.co/DcM7MydQjR

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) December 3, 2024

Rogan “DC Draino” O’Handley seems a little lost here, especially because his buddy Matt Kim says conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s insane martial law declaration is “a last ditch effort to implement his plan to remove corruption and eradicate deep state,” but is not sure this is “the best way to handle it.” Like maybe he’ll be cheering harder if it ends up working.

If we had more to report from South Korea we would but it’s like fucking minute by minute there. The National Assembly voted to overturn the declaration, but there’s a constitution question of whether it’s valid without the review of the presidential cabinet. The soldiers supposedly left the Assembly’s building but then other soldiers started smashing windows to get in… for what purpose we have no idea. Probably nothing good. All of this was just in the last half hour or so.

A Vietnamese judge on Tuesday tossed property tycoon Truong My Lan’s appeal of her death sentence for ripping off the Saigon Commercial Bank to the tune of $12 billion over a decade, but offered her a chance at commutation for life if she can pay back 75 percent – or $9 billion – of the ill-gotten funds, the BBC reports on the incredible deal of a lifetime that My Lan doesn’t want to miss.

“Hurry! This offer won’t last! Terms and conditions apply. See Vietnamese Penal Code for further details. Offer does not include commutation of life sentence or any special treatment in prison including flavoring for rice ration,” the judge did not say while speeding up his voice really fast for the terms and conditions part like it was a radio commercial. The actual terms and conditions were not clear from the article, but it does appear that the court requires it in cash, as My Lan’s lawyers said they were working as fast as they could to sell off whatever properties they could.

The problem however is that other assets are tied up in partnerships and what not, making it difficult and time-consuming to cash out – never mind the fact that, as the lawyers have raised, a motivated seller is easy prey for a low-balling buyer. The BBC reports that My Lan, 68, has also been shaking down friends to see who might kick in to help out, which is one way to put someone on the spot.

Conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared an “emergency martial law,” and accused the country’s opposition Democratic Party of sympathizing with North Korea and undermining the rule of law in the nation amid a drive the impeach the fucker, the AP reports.

Yoon vowed to “eradicate pro-North Korean forces and protect the constitutional democratic order,” and to “rebuild and protect the free Republic of Korea, which is falling into the depths of national ruin… I will eliminate anti-state forces as quickly as possible and normalize the country,” while asking citizens to stand with him and tolerate “some inconveniences,” during martial law. Oh fuck.

The leader of Yoon’s own conservative party, Han Dong-hoon, called the decision “wrong” and vowed to “stop it with the people.” Oh extra fuck. Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 election, called Yoon’s announcement “illegal and unconstitutional.”

From a press release by the office of Florida 9th Circuit State’s Attorney Andrew Bain: “On Monday, Orange County Circuit Court Judge Michael Kraynick sentenced Sarah Boone, 47, to life in the Florida Department of Corrections for murdering her boyfriend, Jorge Torres. On Oct 25, a jury found Boone guilty of Second Degree Murder after she zipped her boyfriend inside a suitcase and left him to suffocate and die on Feb 23, 2020. Cellphone videos found on Boone’s phone were presented as evidence during the trial. Boone recorded herself taunting Torres as he frantically pleaded to be released from the suitcase. She did not let the victim out and instead went upstairs to sleep.”

The October press release after Boone’s conviction included more details about how the registered Republican and Torres, 42, had “spent the evening together at their home in the 4700 block of Frantz Lane in Winter Park. They consumed alcohol and then according to the Defendant, they played a game of hide-and-seek. According to the Defendant, Torres voluntarily climbed inside a suitcase as part of the game. Boone then zipped the suitcase closed and recorded herself taunting the victim as he asked to be let out of the suitcase. She did not and instead went upstairs to sleep.”

Republican former Virginia Congressman Scott Taylor, who was caught cheating in his 2018 reelection bid before being defeated by Dem Elaine Luria, and then tried to become a lobbyist for Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, is now apparently a CNN contributor and a pretty whiny one at that. Taylor on Monday told anchor Abby Philip he’s “offended” by the fact that the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer used anonymous sources for her “hit piece” on rapey white nationalist Fox News host Pete Hegseth about his drunkenness, sexual indiscretions, and gross incompetence while helming two different astroturfed “veterans” organizations in the 2010s.

Hilariously at least one of these anonymous sources was still on Hegseth’s side. As flagged by Political Wire on Monday, the author of a 2015 email claiming that Hegseth had screamed “kill all Muslims” during one tour and then unzipped his pants and pissed on a sidewalk in front of other staffers at the Koch-backed Concerned Veterans of America, had told Mayer “If you print that, I will deny I wrote it.” When the writer was reminded that the email been sent from the same personal account he still uses, he said, “I don’t care. I’ll just say it never happened.” That is so fucking MAGA.

Sources tell Fox News that convicted felon President-Elect Trump last weekend told Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada should become the 51st state if the economy of the US’s northern neighbor could not survive the 25 percent tariff the fat fuck plans to impose next month.

The Orange Dictator told Trudeau that Canada has failed by allowing large amounts of drugs and people to cross the border and, per Fox, “Trump became more animated” when it came to the trade deficit with Canada, which he believed to be more than $100 billion. Trump then threatened that if the made-up or grossly exaggerated issues weren’t fixed, he would levy a 25 percent tariff on all of Maple Land’s exports to the US, to which Trudeau responded their economy could not survive.

“Trump replied – asking, so your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the US to the tune of $100 billion? Trump then suggested to Trudeau that Canada become the 51st state, which caused the prime minister and others to laugh nervously,” Fox News writes, citing sources present.

“A civil forfeiture complaint was filed today for $3.4 million in proceeds from the sale of a music studio in Burbank, California. The complaint alleges that the proceeds, which are beneficially owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, are the proceeds of sanctions violations. An indictment charging Deripaska with sanctions violations had been unsealed on Sept 29, 2022, and Deripaska remains at large,” says a Justice Department press release on a civil case against the still-at-large oligarch.

The rest of the details are less important than the very real question of whether this case – and the overall indictment against Deripaska – will still be in the court system three months from now, or if they’re going to be dropped because of a change in management, since MAGA hearts Deripaska.

Semi-literate hick Senator Tommy Tuberville told veteran cocaine user Larry Kudlow on Monday that he’s determined to make sure Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearings are all about the military itself and not all the sexual assault and drunken shenanigans Hegseth is very credibly accused of.

Officials in the Oakland, California suburb of Piedmont on Monday identified the three 2023 graduates of Piedmont High School who were killed last week when the Cybertruck one of them was driving jumped a curb, wrapped around a tree, and burst into flames at approximately 3:08 AM local time, expressing their deepest condolences to the families of college sophomores Soren Dixon, Jack Nelson, and Krysta Tsukahara, for the no doubt horrific losses, USA Today reports.

The officials did not however name the owner or the driver of the electric SUV or what factors might have played a role in the crash from which one passenger, 20 year-old Jordan Miller, survived. Specifically whether the kind of shit a privileged 19 year-old might have been doing before getting behind the wheel during the wee hours of the morning while home from their out-of-state school on Thanksgiving break was a factor, or if the geometric monstrosity conceived of by a privileged mental 19 year-old might have had some safety flaws that tragically cost these kids their lives.

Or both. It could always be both, that one of the invincible youngsters decided they were a little too tipsy and/or stoned to drive and switched on the “Autopilot” only for it to autopilot them right into a tree at high speed. Hopefully Miller makes a full and speedy recovery so he can share his story and become a spokesman for a national campaign of “Friends don’t let friends drive Musk.”

“Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East – But it’s all talk, and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!” posted “anti-war” convicted felon President-Elect Trump on Monday, evidently threatening to bomb Gaza if Hamas doesn’t release their captives.

Even odds that his buddy Netanyahu already has a deal in the works and this is Trump just preemptively moving to take credit for it being a direct result of his not-particularly specific threat.

The chief of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which is like the FBI but for Kansas, last week asked the state’s Legislative Budget Committee for a $100 million to relocate the agency’s headquarters to somewhere else in or around the capital city of Topeka because the neighborhood near the current building is riddled with crime and making employees feel unsafe, the Topeka Capital-Journal reports.

“The one thing I would ask you to keep in mind as we make this very large request for new headquarters building is that the one we’re in just isn’t safe,” said KBI director Tony Mattivi, who leads a law enforcement agency employing peace officers who carry deadly weapons on the job and whose mission is to protect Kansans from violence perpetrated by criminals. Mattivi also cited the decrepit and fire hazard-riddled state of the campus, a fire hazard-riddled old school house dating back to the 1800s, as another reason why the bureau needs a new purpose-built headquarters.

Why he couldn’t just work with that – the buildings literally have bats in them – instead of looking like a complete fucking jackass who can’t be bothered to clean up the streets around his agency is unclear. “I don’t mean to be unkind to anyone, but we’re in a horrible neighborhood. We have two separate buildings. We have no security or perimeter fencing. Employees walk between our buildings through an alley, and are often confronted with homeless people and drug addicts, because that’s what surrounds the KBI building. For us to be in that location with no security, no perimeter, is just unsafe, and I feel uncomfortable with the environment that we are putting our folks in given the location where we sit and the lack of security,” said Mattivi, evidently not sheepishly at all.

“Enron Corporation today announced its relaunch as a company dedicated to solving the global energy crisis. With a bold new vision, Enron will leverage cutting-edge technology, human ingenuity, and the spirit of adaptation to address the critical challenges of energy sustainability, accessibility, and affordability,” says a statement at Enron.com/pages/newsroom, dated December 2nd, 2024.

A community note on every tweet so far by “Enron” says it’s a “crypto scam masquerading as bankrupted Enron Corporation,” without any further details save for a link to the Wikipedia page for Enron’s collapse. That article itself makes no mention of this current “relaunch” or crypto.

Something’s not adding up here. The website looks like a decent amount of work was put into the production value. It was not just slapped together even if there’s maybe some (very subtle) signs of corner-cutting. Whoever put it together knew what they were doing and how to make it look pretty slick. There’s also the question of who the hell would hijack freaking Enron to be the brand fronting a crypto scam. Might as well be Washington Mutual, Bear Stearns, or Lehman Brothers.

There’s even a merch store that looks very real. On the other hand there are no names of anyone on the site, save for some very fake looking employees on the “Careers” page. The language across the site is extremely vague and anodyne. The banner on the Twitter page says “World’s Leading Company.” The “Repentant” part of the mission statement saying “Acknowledging and taking responsibility for past mistakes isn’t merely for show – it reflects our commitment to ethical practices moving forward. Our goal isn’t just to repair relationships through transparency, but to build a lasting foundation of trust and sustainable growth,” is both fucking funny and weird.