As a press scramble as he boarded Air Force One after his infrastructure announcement at the Brent Spence Bridge that joins Ohio and Kentucky, President Joe Biden said he intends to visit the southern border next week.
Fox reports Biden was asked about a Wall Street Journal article about him considering a trip to tour the southern border, and he replied, “That is my intention.”
President Joe Biden visited Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, to promote his infrastructure policies that will fund the renovation of a local bridge over which materials accounting for 3% of US GDP travels each year, WLWT NBC 5 in Cincinnati reports.
Opened in 1963, the Brent Spence Bridge has been in serious need of repair for more than two decades. Originally designed to carry a three-lane roadway on each of two levels, the layout of the bridge has been altered to eliminate emergency lanes to expand to eight total lanes to increase capacity. The bridge has been repeatedly closed as chunks of concrete have dislodged from the top roadway, crashing onto the lower level.
Officials have tried for decades to develop a plan to renovate and update the structure, but with no success. The Biden Administration included $1.6 billion for the vital span in his landmark $550 billion infrastructure bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed by Congress in November 2021.
Nearly two months after being appointed Special Counsel to investigate the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, Jack Smith has arrived in Washington, DC from his previous job at The Hague, Reuters reports.
Smith had been waylaid since his appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland due to his recovery from surgery after a knee injury sustained while biking; Smith is an avid triathlete. Smith was in The Hague as a chief war crimes prosecutor for events in the Kosovo War.
Garland appointed Smith as a way of insuring independent investigation and prosecution for those Republican politicians and their supporters who planned, supported and abetted the attack on the Constitution, including the plan by Donald Trump and his minions to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and the subsequent attack by right-wing insurrectionists.
A group of House Republicans will on Wednesday attempt to call a vote to adjourn before the chamber’s fourth round of voting on Speaker, pushing it off until Thursday as they try to unfuck this moronic situation, Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman reports. Sherman adds that Dem leaders will whip against the adjournment, meaning the GOP needs to get to 218 on their own.
LMAO ROFL Libs! LOL! You socialist sky screamers got so owned on Tuesday! The MAGA Party put on a masterclass in absolute beatdowns of your pro-groomer agenda! Your tears over that thug Hakeem Jeffries losing the Speakership vote were so delicious, America First patriots cannot wait for a second serving on Wednesday. Make them extra salty this time LOL! It must’ve been especially triggering to see George Santos sitting there proudly voting against that libtard Jeffries even after all the lies and hatred from the leftist media failed to derail Santos’ career.
Make sure your cry closets have extra blankies in them for what’s going to happen in a few hours when Jeffries loses again. Cuddle your dickless gender-confused Mr Potato Heads extra close as the emotional pain of your hero’s crushing defeat plays out on live television. Just imagine the sheer terror Hunter Biden is feeling right now, knowing that accountability is coming for him and his evil dad for pledging allegiance to China. There’s no vaccine against Congressional subpoenas. If there were it would probably be another lethal clot shot. Hunter probably wishes he was dead anyway after Hakeem Jeffries lost the Speakership election and is going to lose again! LOL!
Piece of shit Republican Senator Ron Johnson on Tuesday told the Associated Press he has “no recollection” of speaking to former Wisconsin GOP chairman Andrew Hitt about having the state’s Republican-controlled legislature toss out the result of the 2020 presidential election and appointing Trump electors following the release of texts and a transcript of Hitt’s testimony to the House January 6th Select Committee in which Hitt told investigators such a conversation took place.
“I have no recollection of the phone call referenced in the texts, and therefore do not know the context of any comment I might have made. My goal since the November 2020 elections has consistently been to restore confidence in our election system,” said Johnson in a statement.
Not remembering it is probably a smart move, considering Hitt wrote “Ron called me right after and now is arguing for us to have the legislature choose the electors. OMG,” in a text message to Wisconsin GOP Executive Director Mark Jefferson on December 7th, 2020.
Freshman California Dem Congressman Robert Garcia will replace the traditional book of faith with a copy of the Constitution, a photo of his late parents who he lost to COVID, and an original 1939 copy of Superman #1, loaned from the Library of Congress, for his swearing in ceremony, whenever it happens after this Speaker election shitshow is finally over, the Washington Post reports.
Garcia, an openly gay Peruvian immigrant who served as mayor of Long Beach from 2014 to 2022, said he “became a Superman fan as a kid because I related to him. An immigrant, a sense of justice, and a secret identity,” last year after DC Comics rebooted the iconic character to be bisexual.
Following his election in November, Garcia tweeted he was having a hard time deciding on whether to use the first solo Superman comic book (the character first appeared a year earlier in Action Comics #1) or the 1962 Amazing Fantasy #15, which was Spider-Man’s debut. Couldn’t go wrong with either, just as long as the hero’s day job is in the media like Clark Kent and Peter Parker, rather than some asshole billionaire like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark. We’re biased toward the reporters.
Nice of Donald to finally take a break from continuing to harass former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss to issue this plea for the Freedom Caucasians to support his puppet.
Lying piece of shit Republican Congressman George Santos told police in Brazil in 2010 that he had stolen a man’s checkbook and used it to purchase clothes and shoes two years earlier, according to a statement provided to CNN from cops in the city of Niterói, near Rio de Janiero. Santos also admitted to using a fake ID with checkbook owner’s name but Santos’ photo to pass the checks.
Florida Congressman Byron Donalds on Tuesday was the only Republican House member to switch his support from Kevin McCarthy to another candidate (Jim Jordan) on the third vote. Now Donalds tells CNN’s Kaitlan Collins he could switch his vote back to McCarthy, just about the only actual thing of substance he said in this interview on Day 2 of the ongoing Speaker vote shitshow.
Editor’s note: Okay, folks, I’m going to try something here with an occasional feature where we’ll post short blurbs for a handful of stories National Zero didn’t cover during that day because of other breaking news but were still pertinent, fun or just something we thought would be interesting to you. If it works out, we’ll do it periodically as a cap on the day’s news. If it doesn’t, well, it’ll be like that person at the bar you wished you would’ve talked to when you were 27, but who slipped away. Oh, wait, no, I’m wrong. It’ll be like you to the person in the bar you wished you would’ve talked to: you’re never going to see it again. Polite feedback appreciated, and if it works out, we’ll figure out a way to have readers submit story suggestions.
An international anti-war group has received more than one million contacts through texts, calls or website hits from Russians looking to either surrender or avoid military service, Euromaiden Press reports, via former Ambassador Mike McFaul, so you know it’s a legit source and not Bulgarian porn like it sounds. (It’s actually an ABC News report, but McFaul cited the Euromaiden Press report.)
Run by the “I Want to Live” Project, volunteers take calls, emails and texts from soldiers looking to surrender. Many want to give up to the drones they see flying overhead and want instructions. They also want to get in contact using private chat message platforms, with the encrypted Telegram a popular choice.
To date, the project reports it’s facilitated 4,000 surrenders. “We saw that there are many Russians who do not want to fight,” said Vitaliy Matvienko, the project’s spokesperson. “Their numbers skyrocketed after Putin announced mobilization in Russia, while Ukrainian Armed Forces liberated vast territories in the Kharkiv region in a fulminant counteroffensive.”
Elon Musk’s struggling social media platform Twitter–which wasn’t struggling all that much until Musk bought it–will again accept political advertising starting in the coming weeks, Musk announced in an obvious effort to increase revenue.
Politico reports Twitter announced the policy change in a tweet from the company’s Safety account: “We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics. Today, we’re relaxing our ads policy for cause-based ads in the US.”
Musk has struggled to keep existing advertising and attract new ones after he personally overturned policies that guided Twitter content, allowing the company to delete offensive, threatening, deceptive and dangerous content. In November 2019, Twitter’s previous CEO, Jack Dorsey, announced that the company would no longer accept political advertising, noting that paying for political advertising on the platform would lead to “significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle.”
Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin remains in a Cincinnati hospital in critical condition after collapsing on the field during a National Football League game Monday night after suffering a suspected cardiac arrest from a strike to the chest, ESPN reports.
Hamlin collapsed backward seconds after standing up after he tackled an opponent in a game against the Bengals. He laid on the field for 16 minutes as medical personnel used CPR and applied supplemental oxygen, with the league reporting they were able to restore Hamlin’s heartbeat while still on the field. Although doctors treating Hamlin have not released a statement about what happened, other physicians have noted what happened to Hamlin is consistent with a condition called “commotio cordis,” where the heart stops beating normally after a collision or hit at a specific point in the pumping cycle.
In the hours after Hamlin’s collapse, NFL fans and players voiced their support for the player and his teammates, traumatized by the event that strickened their colleague. Most teams canceled their media availabilities Tuesday in respect for the league; Pittsburgh’s head coach, Mike Tomlin, spoke to the media, noting that he’s known Hamlin since the player was a young 12-year-old football fan and voicing the team’s and the league’s support.
“It is Day One of the 188th Congress”–[Fact check: it is not. First, this would be the 118th Congress, so Sean’s only 70 Congresses off, and it isn’t the first day of that Congress either because only the elected Speaker can gavel in a new Congress and there ain’t no Speaker]–“and House Republicans now are on the verge of becoming a total clown show if they’re not careful,” Trump advisor and New Year’s parade float that hasn’t deflated fully yet Sean Hannity says, forgetting that the Party became a circus when it chose Donald Trump as its leader. “But despite the cheering and elation of Democrats and the mob in the media”–[Fact check: Sean Hannity is a member of the media.]–“it’s not a dire situation, yet.”
Ha ha! Funny! Look at the Republicans in disarray who can’t settle on a Speaker of the House with the majority they hold in the House by their fingernails. We as liberals enjoy the self-inflicted wounds of the opposition. But imagine if this fuckery happened two years ago, or two years from now when–three days after the new House should open on January 3rd–the entire Congress is supposed to meet to certify the Electoral College count.
Without a Speaker, the members of the House cannot be sworn in, so technically, Congress–or at least the House–will not exist. The building will still be there, but the body itself will cease to be. It will become an un-Congress. The House chamber will resemble Donald Trump’s soul or Alex Jones’s future bank account: empty. There will literally be no House.
Pretend the recent New Year was to celebrate 2025, not 2023, and the new Republican majority in this timeline still cannot agree on a Speaker because a score of their caucus stomp their feet and have a temper tantrum. According to law (3 U.S. Code § 15), Congress must hold a joint session on January 6th after a presidential election to certify the Electoral College votes. But what happens if there is no House?
The US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington announced Tuesday the arrests of two suspects in a series of Christmas Day electrical substation sabotages which left 14,000 without power in the outer Tacoma region. The outages were thought to be a possible act of right wing terrorism given the similarity to another suspected MAGA-motivated attack in North Carolina earlier last month, but the affidavit in support of arrest indicates that the two assholes confessed they did it because they wanted to steal a cash register from a local business.
Disgraced former President Trump on Tuesday reciprocated the fanatic loyalty of his devoted servant Kevin McCarthy in Donald’s typical way after the GOP leader had a rough day at work.
“We’ll see what happens. We’ll see how it all works out,” Trump told NBC’s Garrett Haake when asked if McCarthy still had his endorsement for Speaker. “When I asked directly if he was sticking by McCarthy, who did not clinch the gavel today after three floor votes, Mr. Trump told me ‘we’ll see what happens,’ and ended our conversation,” Haake wrote, having clearly needled the fat bastard.
Kremlin officials on Tuesday increased the “official” death toll of the Ukrainian HIMARS missile strike on a Russian military ammunition depot in the eastern Donbas region from 63 to 89, still well short of the up to 400 estimated by Kyiv, but still a startling admission by Russia.
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