MAGA Republican Matt Van Epps has defeated Democrat state Representative Aftyn Behn in the Tennessee 7th District special election, Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman projects.

It will not be a comfortable margin. Single digits, maybe as low as +3 in a race that should never have been close until the GOP started slamming the panic button a few weeks ago. All that hype and now the spotlight’s on the margin and Behn’s massive overperformance above a Trump +22 district baseline. Mike Johnson and his minions will sleep just a little tiny bit less uneasily tonight.

Four weeks after a Dem former governor who resigned due to a sex scandal got squashed in a mayoral election on one side of the Hudson well the same thing happened on the other: Jim McGreevy, who resigned from the top job in New Jersey in 2004 because he was effing some Israeli spy dude, was defeated in the Jersey City mayoral race by progressive councilman James Solomon and not by a close margin at all, with the current count at 68 to 31 percent, per @Umichvoter.

Convicted felon President Trump’s dude in the Honduras presidential election Nasry Asfura fell behind centrist Salvador Nasralla in the ongoing vote count on Tuesday by a few thousand votes but only about 63 percent of ballots had been counted thus far so it’ still a ball game, Reuters reports.

Yeah there’s not really any like bigger political picture or comment on the media or furious editorializing on the state of American society to be found here in this story sourced from a Tuesday Facebook post by the Hanover County, Virginia Animal Protection and Shelter. A raccoon somehow broke into a state-owned liquor store in the town of Ashland late Friday/early Saturday, knocked over a dozen or two bottles of what appears to be gin, vodka, and other various spirits, licked some of it off the floor, got fucked up, and hilariously passed out in the restroom next to the toilet as though he was trying to vomit. The cop who responded took these excellent pics and brought the self-tranquilized animal to the shelter to sleep the libations off while vets examined him. Finding no injuries or disease, they then released him back into the wild at an undisclosed location.

That’s it. No policy or cultural implications. Nothing MAGA or libtarded, Nazi or Marxist about it. No punching up, down, or laterally. MAYBE there’s room for self-reflection that this is fairly close to a literal “man bites dog” story in that, had it been a human doing the exact same thing then it might not be worth a pickup here but this site has ran some pretty banal stories because they were banal. Either way, let’s be real: There’s no need to force any further grating meta-commentary here.

A drunk, passed-out raccoon in a liquor store can and absolutely should be appreciated on its own terms, especially the way the little bastard is splayed out on his furry belly like that, claws all limp.

During what Axios reports was a lengthy phone call between the two corrupt autocrats, Israeli dictator Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday once again nagged convicted felon President Trump to do something, anything to help him get a pardon for his crimes, something which US sources said prompted Donald to tell “Bibi” he did all that he could do with his several public demands to Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Israeli sources said it was Trump who brought up the pardon quest, given that Netanyahu had formally applied for it on Sunday, beginning a rubber-stampy review process.

It’s not clear what the hell else Trump is supposed to do to turn the screws on Herzog. Putting tariffs on Israel would just get the country’s voters pissed off at Netanyahu and bolster Herzog.

Kind of like in Brazil, where Trump’s pressure campaign against President Luiz Lula over Jair Bolsonaro seems to have tapered off, judging by what the fat bastard posted minutes ago: “We had a very productive call with President Lula of Brazil. Among the things discussed were Trade, how our Countries could work together to stop Organized Crime, Sanctions imposed on various Brazilian dignitaries, Tariffs, and various other items. President Lula and I established a relationship at a meeting which took place at the United Nations, and I believe it set the stage for very good dialogue and agreement long into the future. I look forward to seeing and speaking with him soon.”

“Much good will come out of this newly formed partnership!” Trump continued. Bolsonaro’s currently in a cell in a police academy in Brasilia and has plenty of contact with the outside world. So he’ll hear about this pretty soon if not already. Hope it hurts emotionally, knowing his pal just fucked him.

Hardcore Texas politics nerd Harvey Kronberg’s Quorum Report site, which kind of charmingly looks like it was a CompuServe group before it was website but none of the CSS was updated, reports that “Rep Jasmine Crockett to hold a special announcement event in Dallas next Monday afternoon.” Immediately after that in the feed is a headline that says “New poll finds nearly half would absolutely not vote for Rep Crockett in a Texas general election for US Senate,” from “Change Reserach.”

That survey found Crockett trailing Picasso Face by 8 percent at 50 to 42.

Because Governor Tim Walz didn’t pay close enough attention to the years-long ripoff of Minnesota’s food aid programs by certain actors, some of whom are in the area’s Somali community, migrants from the impoverished East African country living in the Twin Cities area – no doubt virtually all of them having had nothing at all to do with the scams -will soon find themselves living in fear of ICE raids in an upcoming sweep by convicted felon President Trump’s regime, the AP reports.

Great job Fox News. Days of covering this got results for your mostly white audience.

“Hellmann’s Mayonnaise is returning to football’s biggest stage for the sixth consecutive year with a new :30 commercial, airing during the Big Game, continuing to remind fans that the perfect game day always starts with great taste,” says a press release from Hellmann’s Mayonnaise.

Wait, which “Big Game”? Why’s that a proper noun in this context? What sport are we talking about here anyway? Is it even a sport? Call of Duty is a big game. So is chess. This is so confusing.

“This season, Hellmann’s has continued to strengthen its existing presence across football culture, from the launch of House of Hellmann’s, its first-ever fashion-meets-football collaboration, to its spirited ‘Do Dip’ campaign, which brought together diehard supporters and fair-weather fans alike over their shared love for game day dishes. Together, these initiatives set the stage for Hellmann’s biggest moment of the season on February 8th,” the press release continued and ooh so the key words in there are “football” and that date at the end. Plus the image of a jar of Hellmann’s on the field of a football stadium with “2.8.2026” on the graphic indicate it is indeed a big football game.

Hmmm… So on February 8th there’s a big football game for which Hellmann’s Mayonnaise is asserting its close association with yet they do not provide any further specifics as to the nature of this game, not even the name of the entity that organizes and stages it. The press release repeatedly uses the term “Big Game,” almost to the point of presumption of familiarity with it and the importance of its broadcast’s advertising breaks to inform viewers about Hellmann’s products.

It’s as though these neurodivergent mayonnaise weirdos never heard of the fucking Super Bowl.

A 19 year-old man thought twice about climbing into the lion enclosure at the Parque Zoobotanico Arruda Camara in Joao Pessoa, Brazil on Sunday, turning around and back up the tree he had used to ingress the pit containing several of the African predators when a female immediately lunged at him in a threatening manner and quickly shattering his delusions of harmony with the animals.

Per NBC News, Gerson de Melo Machado had previously been arrested for trying to climb into a plane’s landing gear believing it would take him to Africa so he could live out his dream of becoming a lion tamer. So the wacky, dangerous behavior wasn’t terribly out of character, which Machado snapped out of when he saw the lioness meant business at the zoo on Sunday… Slightly too late.

Machado was quickly mauled to death by the lioness. Zoo officials closed the gates for the next few days to conduct a security assessment. The lioness, not named in the article, will not be euthanized as she’s healthy and had not exhibited any aggressive behavior outside this incident – in which a predatory pack animal reacted pretty naturally to a breach of its territory by an unfamiliar intruder.

The fat fuck already got in his “affordability” bitching and complaining, saying right at the meeting’s open that “There’s this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about – ‘affordability.’ They just say the word. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody. They just say it. ‘Affordability.’ I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. The word ‘affordability’ is a con job by the Democrats.”

“Darrell Issa took off from me just now when I tried to ask him about reports he’s considering running for House in Texas. He represents House in CA. His staffer attempted to close the door of stairwell to block our access. He walked very quickly up steps to avoid any questions,” CNN’s Manu Raju reports. Copied that verbatim to not mince Issa’s flight from being questioned as if Raju was a California Highway Patrol auto theft investigator pointedly asking Issa if the terms of his parole say anything on whether he’s allowed to have dozens of license plates in the trunk of his car.

Sa yeah, it would seem that the reporting on Issa’s Lone Star State ambitions is accurate.

Republican Virginia state Senator Mark Peake on Monday informed the Old Dominion State GOP Central Committee that he’ll resign from his other position as chair of the party effective December 31st following the apocalyptic defeats suffered last month, the Washington Post reports.

“While it seems like we are in the cold, dark depths of winter right now (we are), I am supremely confident that Republicans will continue to fight for the values embodied in the Republican Creed, which can lead us to a victorious spring,” Peake wrote in his letter, which sounds more like a “Come on team! Let’s turn those frowns upside down!” than the “I’m quitting eight months into my chairmanship because we got fucking destroyed and someone’s head’s gotta roll” it actually was.

The Post notes that expectations were low going into last month’s contests given the suckery and campaign inertia of Lt Gov Winsome Sears as gubernatorial nominee, the now-resolved government shutdown being correctly blamed on Republicans in DC by the hundreds of thousands of federal workers in the northern parts of the state, and just the thermostatic nature of Virginia’s off-year cycle (almost) always being blowback to the party in power in Washington. But even those expectations were exceeded in their low-ness as deranged Dem Attorney General nominee Jay Jones defeated incumbent Republican Jayson Miyares and Democrats flipped 13 GOP State House seats – some of them fairly red – leading to Peake’s figurative ritual self-disemboweling.

Wait, maybe the “victorious spring” line is about the expected referendum to nuke three-to-five Republican-held congressional districts? Lol, really hope that’s what he meant. That’d be so fucking funny if that’s what he’s pepping his party up for: A big win on some random Tuesday in March.

“A man in Fort Worth, Texas has been federally charged for threatening to build a bomb, conduct a suicide attack, and kill Americans and others, in a video shared on TikTok, X, and Facebook, announced United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Ryan Raybould. Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, 30, a citizen of Afghanistan residing in Fort Worth, was charged by federal complaint with the offense of transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce related to threats he made on a November 23, 2025, video call, which was recorded and posted to multiple social media accounts, including TikTok, X, and Facebook. According to the complaint, the video shows Alokozay angrily gesturing and speaking Dari, a language commonly spoken in Afghanistan, while interacting with at least two other males on a video call.”

“As alleged, Alokozay threatened to conduct a suicide attack on the other participants on the call, as well as ‘infidels’ and Americans. He claimed he would build a bomb in his vehicle and talked about a particular yellow cooking oil container favored by the Taliban in building improvised explosive devices (‘IEDs’) in Afghanistan. Alozokay stated the Taliban were dear to him and that he came to the United States to kill those on the call. He also claimed he wanted to conduct a suicide attack on Americans. According to the complaint, Alokozay stated he was not afraid of deportation or getting killed,” says a Justice Department/Northern District of Texas press release posted Tuesday.

“This Afghan national came into America during the Biden administration and as alleged, explicitly stated that he came here in order to kill American citizens. The public safety threat created by the Biden administration’s vetting breakdown cannot be overstated – the Department of Justice will continue working with our federal and state partners to protect the American people from the prior administration’s dangerous incompetence,” the release then quotes scumbag AG Pam Bondi.

Yeah the asshole was probably granted asylum by the Trump admin this year too.

I was looking for a Youth Large… Domestic terrorism arrests are UP 30% this year — impressive, considering I spent zero days dating a Chinese spy named Fang Fang, where should I send your women's medium for date night? https://t.co/f1Ffgn7PVV

— Kash Patel (@Kash_Patel) December 2, 2025

A “senior House Republican” fretting Tuesday’s special election in Tennessee’s 7th tells Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill that “If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged.”

Ummm… Well it sure would be interesting to see what “unhinged” looks like to this House GOP leader since “unhinged” was already an understatement about 14 years ago. More to the point of the anticipated outcome however, the likeliest and best case scenario for the GOP is indeed a single digit win, itself obviously a spectrum of panic inducement from a 1-2 percent squeaker to something more like a current status quo of unease in the 8-9 percent range. So yay for MAGA if it’s +8?

The only real poll that’s been conducted in the district is the one from Emerson last week that put Republican Matt Van Epps up 49 to 47 percent over Democrat Aftyn Behn. Even without the pollster’s very checkered record – all of it favoring the GOP – that’s still within the margin of error, so if anyone wants a reason to be bullish on Behn then they could do a lot worse than that finding.

On a related note and in an echo of the February 13, 2024 New York 3rd special to replace deranged assclown George Santos, the most recent actually contested House special election: The weather’s pretty rough in Tennessee right now and will stay so for the rest of the day. Though earlier forecasts for snow have since been revised to rain, it still sucks for MAGA people that live out in the sticks. Looking forward to that being the GOP’s excuse for an underperformance/loss in TN-7.

Drug-trafficking scumbag ex-Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernandez on Tuesday was formally pardoned and released from a federal prison by convicted felon President Trump on Tuesday, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reports on what’s possibly the most reckless amnesty of Donald’s second reich.

Inside the FBI, a very different story is emerging:

“This isn’t a cabal. It’s an alliance of FBI professionals alarmed by weaponization under Christopher Wray. They endorsed Trump — and 80% of their report card on Patel and Bongino was negative.” —@mirandadevine pic.twitter.com/6sS9lbTS2q

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) December 2, 2025

“Mark Kelly and the group of Unpatriotic Politicians were WRONG to do what they did, and they know it! I hope the people looking at them are not duped into thinking that it’s OK to openly and freely get others to disobey the President of the United States!” posted convicted felon President Trump on Monday, as though he were just some average MAGA idiot demanding “justice” and not a high-ranking public official with some actual agency over the situation, norms be damned. Pussy.