The Orange God Emperor, probably pretty fucking pissed after the “Special Master” diversion basically backfired and did nothing to significantly slow down the federal criminal investigation into his theft of top secret documents from the White House, has removed his $3 million marquee lawyer, former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise from the case, CNN reports.

Kise will stay on the Trump legal team and will purportedly work on other matters – on which there’s plenty to do – but we can’t help but think the Donald would have fired Kise if the attorney had not already managed to secure his $3 million retainer up front. Now the fat bastard feels like he needs to get his money’s worth out of this guy, even though he couldn’t deliver at a crucial juncture.

A DC jury on Tuesday convicted John Strand, a flamboyant male fashion model and boyfriend to anti-vaxxer quack Capitol rioter Dr Simone Gold, of four misdemeanors and one felony count for his participation in the January 6th, 2021 MAGA insurrection, Ron Filipkowski reports. Strand did not commit any crime of violence, vandalism, or theft while wandering inside the Capitol during the attack, he simply was such a total assclown that he couldn’t just to what his sugar mama did and take a plea deal for a single misdemeanor and two months in the clink.

“I don’t have tourniquets for you,” a Russian non-commissioned officer tells a group of newly-arrived conscripts at a military camp.  She goes on to tell the conscripts that they must supply their own sleeping bag, medications, and first aid kit–she suggest the new soldiers get the IFAK (individual first aid kit) from their vehicles to use on the battlefield.  If they can’t get tourniquets, the NCO tells them to have their wives and girlfriends send sanitary pads and tampons to control blood loss.

The Consumer Confidence index, a measure that Republicans use to get swing voters to correctly trust them on the economy, was rigged by the Biden Administration in September in order to deprive right wing politicians and influencers of a key talking point, ABC News reports.

Rising from 103.6 in August to 108 in September, a number increase evident to the vast majority of MAGA pundits who know that seems fake even if they otherwise don’t really know what it represents, they nevertheless will be able to say something like “CONman Biden really puts the CON in CONsumer CONfidence. These numbers are a total CON-job!” Jim Jordan or Charlie Kirk or Marjorie Taylor Greene will write on Twitter to show their fans how rigged the whole thing is. Even if it’s not true, no lib can prove otherwise, and therefore they will be massively owned. MAGA!

National Zero will resume our regular news coverage now that we’ve rubbed some salt in a small wound on the diseased hides of our right wing readers. We hoped they enjoyed this nonsense.

Florida Gov Ron DeSantis is increasingly preparing for an all-out war with his likely rival for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, disgraced former President Trump, Vanity Fair reports.

A source tells VF’s Gabe Sherman that the diminutive autocrat “calls him a TV personality and a moron who has no business running for president,” and that “the only way to beat Trump is to attack him head-on. He says he would turn to Trump during a debate and say, ‘Why didn’t you fire Fauci? You said you would build the wall, but there is no wall. Why is that?'” which we will remark is impressive because that’s exactly what the fuck we’ve been saying a challenger should say.

The Donald for his part is building toward a public attack on the Ronald, calling him “overrated, disloyal, and a know-nothing,” with Sherman’s reporting correctly crediting Trump for helping the then middle-management GOP Congressman DeSantis over the finish line in the tight 2018 race.

An attorney with a so-called “Libertarian law firm” called the “Pacific Legal Foundation” has filed a federal civil complaint against the Biden Department of Education over the student debt forgiveness program, this first in a long expected assault on the plan. In the complaint, Frank Garrison of the PLF argues his standing is that because he paid off his debt to go to law school, he is injured by the forgiveness of up to $10,000 in student debt for Americans still carrying it.

“Student debt cancellation has been the subject of great debate in America for at least a decade. Some argue that the government should provide relief to students to offset skyrocketing tuition costs and the consequent debt incurred by many to attend college. Others point to the regressive quality of student debt relief, arguing that it is unfair to cancel student debts that were freely assumed with taxes raised from those who predominately have not attended college, or attended but avoided debt, or paid it off. Congress has authorized a variety of student debt relief programs, including the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, by which some debt is written off for students who choose to work in relatively lower-paying public service or non-profit organization positions after graduation and follow program rules for a period of years. Perhaps because of the costs of student loan cancellation, or its potential impact on the economy, or the inherently divisive nature of this debate, Congress has declined to enact more sweeping debt cancellation. This is, of course, Congress’s prerogative under our Constitution, as Congress is the branch of government that possesses the exclusive power to make law,” writes Garrison in the intro to the complaint.

Until the page was taken down late Monday, mentally ill Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign website listed indicted Capitol insurrectionist/Taylor County co-chairwoman Mandy Robinson-Hand and fake Trump 2020 elector Kay Godwin as “County Captains” working to help him unseat Senator Raphael Warnock, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Probably deciding they weren’t making enough money off of it so there was no real point to letting the torrent of bullshit continue, Facebook (or “Meta” if you want to indulge their lame attempt at rebranding) on Tuesday announced they killed off a large network of Russian bots propagating a sophisticated set of some 60 fake news websites pushing Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine to European users on Facebook and Instagram, the Associated Press reports.

“On a few occasions, the operation’s content was amplified by the official Facebook pages of Russian embassies in Europe and Asia. I think this is probably the largest and most complex Russian-origin operation that we’ve disrupted since the beginning of the war in Ukraine earlier this year,” some overpaid asshole with a made-up title who works for Facebook told the AP.

Russian men of prime age for conscription in dictator Vladimir Putin’s army have been pouring over the borders into pretty much any and every neighboring country except for the one with Ukraine, with some 10,000 a day heading into Armenia and the Republic of Georgia, AFP reports. One man who made into Georgia told the Moscow Times he waited 34 hours to cross the border by car.

Private jet companies meanwhile are charging between £20,000 and £25,000 to charter flights out of the country when the going rate for a typical eight-seater was formerly about £80,000 to £140,000 total, according to the Guardian. No word yet of any Russians swimming into Alaska.

Secret Service leadership in July 2022 confiscated and handed over two dozen agents’ phones to the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general as part of the investigation into the events surrounding the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection, NBC News reports.

The Secret Service agents, possibly loyal to disgraced former President Trump, were reportedly pissed they had to comply with the order so quickly after DHS IG Joseph Cuffari announced a criminal investigation into the missing text messages on the days surrounding the failed attempt to overturn a legitimate presidential election. The agency has been under a cloud of suspicion for so quickly deleting relevant information about one of the darkest days in its history, more so now that Trump loyalist Tony Ornato has quickly retired and still has not testified under oath to contradict the explosive testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Trump fanboys should be annoyed with that one, that a supposed patriot did not do anything to dispute the embarrassing story about him having a meltdown in the presidential SUV and attacking an agent.

Selection of the jurors that will decide the fate of Oath Keepers founder Stewie Rhodes and four of his top lieutenants will begin Tuesday, causing tears and agony for the violent terrorist fanboys who fought in court so desperately to delay the trial on charges of seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the failed January 6th, 2021 insurrection, CNN reports.

Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson, and Thomas Caldwell all face at least 20 years in prison on the historic charges of attempted overthrow of the US government.

Four “mules” linked to late North Carolina Republican operative Leslie McRae Dowless, who died earlier this year while awaiting trial for his role in the absentee ballot harvesting scam that forced a do-over in a 2018 US House election pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanors for their involvement in the scam, the AP reports. Rebecca Thompson, Tonia Marie Gordon, Ginger Shae Eason, and Kelly Hendrix pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess absentee ballots and received suspended jail sentences, probation and 100 hours of community service.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his house Monday, jumping in a pickup with his wife at the wheel, to avoid contact with a process server delivering a subpoena from a pro-choice group suing the state, the Texas Tribune reports.

A process server showed up at the door of Paxton’s house Monday morning, telling the woman who answered the door he needed to speak with Paxton.  She told him Paxton was on the phone; he responded he would wait, he reported in a court affadavit.

An hour later, as the process server stood at the front door, a black Chevy Suburban drove into the driveway at the side of the house, and the server saw Paxton come out of the house about 20 minutes later.  Paxton ran back into the house from the garage before he could be served.  Minutes later, Paxton’s wife exited the house, got into the SUV, and positioned it by the back door. 

After a very long set-up about the pressure to change the name of Atlanta’s baseball team with Trump advisor Sean Hannity chopping the subject up into little pieces so he can digest it, Republican Senate nominee from Georgia and human-cabbage hybrid Hershel Walker claims that he himself “has some friends”…

Well, my reaction there, Sean, I’ma, I’ma say this like this.  I wanna ask Senator Warnock and he need to come out and say he believe they should change the name well I don’t because you know what so funny?  I’ve asked some Native American and they were okay wit it.  That’s one a the problems we have is that most of the people on the left don’t talk to the people that put dem in office that they represent.  All they’re doing is they’re making decision and then they’re comin’ back later knowin’ they make the wrong decision and tryin’ to change it.

In tonight’s “What Did You Expect to Happen?” Department:  A Chicago man was shot in the face by police officers after he broke into the police department’s SWAT training facility and attempted to steal some guns, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The man, who has not been identified, climbed up the building’s fire escape to get into the fifth floor, where a door had been propped open to help with ventilation.  (Where is Ted Cruz when you need him?). Upon entering the door, he found himself in a SWAT training site and saw two rifles on a table in the middle of a training area.

Two instructors stumbled on the scene, saw the man with the guns, and called for armed officers to the scene.  As armed officers arrived, the man pointed the guns toward the officers, at which point, one of the officers fired, hitting the man in the head.  He was taken to an area hospital, and his condition is unknown.

Patio furniture already in the pool at my Dad’s house in #Tampa in anticipation of #HurricaneIan pic.twitter.com/1FW35jia0V

— Bob Redell (@BobNBC) September 27, 2022

It’s not like a high on bath salts-alligator molesting-golf cart crashing-parrot kidnapping-getting everyone high at a wedding party type Florida thing. We just can’t tell if it’s typical weird Florida or weird but strangely kind of ingenious for Florida. It’s the second one, right?

Jupiter will the brightest it’s been in 59 years in tonight’s sky, as the largest planet in our solar system reaches its opposition, a position in the sky directly opposite to the Sun, the Washington Post reports.

In the “nature is a curious thing” department, on Sunday, Jupiter reached its closest point to Earth, so the gas giant will appear even larger in the sky than usual.  That coincidence won’t happen again until 2139.

“Fascists don’t believe in God, of course.  This is a person publicly professing faith in God,” heir to a $30 million frozen food fortune and ersatz everyman Tucker Carlson emotes.  “That’s so scary!  It is so scary.  SO scary… to the people running and benefiting from our current system.  And why is that?”

“Defendant Peter K. Navarro served as a senior White House advisor from January 2017 until January 2021. During his employment, he was subject to the terms of the Presidential Records Act, which vests the United States with ‘complete ownership’ of ‘Presidential records,’ a term that encompasses documentary materials created or received by ‘the President’s immediate staff, or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise or assist the President, in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.'”

“There is no genuine dispute of fact that Dr. Navarro used at least one unofficial email account to conduct official business, that those records are the property of the United States, and that Dr. Navarro has refused to return the records to the United States. Indeed, his counsel has expressly admitted as much. Because Dr. Navarro remains in possession of property that belongs to the United States, this Court should issue a writ of replevin requiring Dr. Navarro to return what he wrongfully continues to possess,” say federal prosecutors in their motion requesting access to former Trump White House douchebag Peter Navarro’s private email account.

Even though more than 22 million American jobs including 1.36 million manufacturing were lost in March and April 2020, the job market has rebounded strongly, recovering all the jobs lost over the following 28 months, with manufacturing jobs surpassing previous levels, the New York Times reports.

As of the September jobs report (reflecting job growth in August), the US has created 1.43 million manufacturing jobs since April 2020, a net increase of 67,000 jobs, typically in middle-class-paying positions that don’t necessarily need a college education.  Many of these jobs are also with union-supported companies, a priority of the Biden Administration.

Perversely, the bump in manufacturing jobs could be attributed indirectly to the pandemic:  as supply chains stopped providing goods–particularly those made overseas–during the pandemic, entrepreneurs and existing companies expanded their operations to fill the gaps, manufacturing those products here in the US.