Category: Uncategorized

The initial launch of the Artemis rocket system, carrying an unmanned Orion capsule, which will travel for six days to circle the moon before returning to Earth, is scheduled for around 12:33 a.m. ET.  This is the third attempt to launch the rocket, the previous two canceled due to fueling issues.  The rocket stayed on the pad as Hurricane Nicole swept through the area a week ago.

As we listen to President Trump remind us of what is possible regarding our borders, economy, and national security, it is my hope that he will continue to focus on the solutions that he offered tonight to restore a broken America.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 16, 2022

The Russian-made missile that struck a rural agricultural coop in Poland along the Ukrainian border, killing two, was not shot out of Russian territory, President Joe Biden commented while attending the G20 summit of economic leaders, the Washington Post reports.

While noting that the assessment was based on preliminary information so it was not conclusive, Biden said he had been in contact with the President of Poland, to whom he offered US support for an investigation into the strike.  Biden said he met with the G7 leaders at the conference in Indonesia as well as with NATO leaders.  Poland is a NATO member.

In a statement, Russia’s defense ministry said that it did not fire into Poland, a statement made less reliable when partnered with the claim that it saw photos from Poland and didn’t see any Russian equipment.  Curiously, though, after reports of the explosion circulated, the Russian delegation isolated itself in its hotel.

At least if putting me to bed, add some policy, real ideas, and solutions to the problems facing our great country. Leadership that unites

— Jeb Bush, Jr. (@JebBushJr) November 16, 2022

“Biden is the worst”

– The current top comment on the Breitbart article “BREAKING: Donald Trump Making Major Announcement at Mar-a-Lago,” posted Tuesday night. If you want another metric for their level of excitement, consider that Breitbart’s Trump livestream article has about 1,950 comments to National Zero’s 1,721 on the same topic as of 9:55 PM EST Tuesday. Meaning the biggest right wing site on Disqus, with daily traffic 50, 100 times higher than ours can only muster 13% more comments.

“*BREAKING NEWS * FOX NEWS HAS CALLED THE 2024 ELECTION FOR FJB,” says the top reply.

Aw, fuck.  We can’t get rid of him.

In another speech that illustrated an unreal dystopia of America in a hellscape “like no one has seen before,” Donald Trump brought up a list of grievances from election fraud to North Korea to immigration in a Mussolini-like speech that highlighted Trump’s version of history

Calling back to January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, Trump said he and his followers would take over the “corridors [carters?] of power,” an intentional invocation of violence that is one of the hallmarks of fascism.

Relying highly on nationalist imagery, Trump glorified himself as the savior of America, predicting that the next two years will take the nation into a hole, “the likes of which no one has ever seen.”  Trump’s rewrite of history blows past the fact that he skyrocketed the debt and had to financially prop up industries like manufacturing and agriculture to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit spending due to his trade wars, which he claimed were raging successes.

He then went on to talk for more than 40 minutes.  Blah blah blah.  “Trump great.”  “Biden ruined everything I did.”  Blah blah, blah blah blah.  “Election stolen.”  “Most persecuted person.”  “Everybody loves Trump.”  If you’ve seen one Trump rally, you’ve seen them all, except this time, the exceptionally white audience was in a gaudy ballroom.

USA Today reports Donald Trump filed paperwork with the Federal Election Committee confirming that he will run for the presidency in 2024, his fourth campaign for the office, having failed as a Reform Party candidate before reaching office as a Republican.

One week after leading the Republican Party to a disastrous showing in the midterm elections–the GOP lost one Senate seat, is gaining the majority in the House by the hair on its chinny-chin-chin, and lost a net two governorships, with Trump’s hand-picked candidates losing bigly–itinerant defendant and paper hoarder Donald Trump may or may not announce his candidacy for president in the 2024 election.  Trump is scheduled to speak at 9 p.m. ET, but we’re launching the festivities early.

We all know Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Georgia) is not quite up to speed on Constitutional issues.  And math.  And anatomy.  And, well, pretty much anything that involves the application of cerebral ability.  So when she was asked about the widespread losses of candidates endorsed by Donald Trump in the midterms, she claims that the lack of the “red wave” Republicans touted in the month prior to the election was due exclusively to redistricting.

And continuing her career as one of the least intelligent members of Congress, Taylor asserts that the non-existent Red Tsunami didn’t materialize because the US Census used to determine redistricting was done prior to the pandemic.  This, of course, is not true:  the Census took place in 2020, the year the pandemic actually happened, with canvassing for the Census first delayed and then altered because of the coronavirus.  Redistricting also doesn’t explain when virtually all of Trump’s high-profile endorsements for state-wide office lost.

A federal judge in Washington, DC has suspended enforcement of Title 42, a 1944 public health directive invoked by the Trump administration to justify the deportation of millions of migrants and to block immigration into the US, CNN reports.

The CDC had announced earlier this year that it intended to phase out enforcement of the rule, which states the Surgeon General could authorize a block of travelers from countries where communicable diseases were prevalent.  During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the United States led large industrialized nations in infection and fatality rates, the Trump administration claimed it had to stop migrants from exacerbating the already-raging pandemic the administration claimed it had under control.

Under the rule, people interdicted at the border were returned to Mexico immediately, without a hearing or due process.  Also under the rule, the Trump administration required people seeking asylum in the United States, who would normally be allowed to stay in the US pending their status hearing, to remain in Mexico.

A county judge in Georgia has suspended the state’s 2019 ban on abortions after six weeks into the pregnancy, saying that when the state law was enacted, the Roe decision stood and superseded the Georgia law, making the state law invalid, the New York Times reports.

Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of the Fulton County Superior Court stated that because the law was enacted in 2019, he had to examine the law under the Supreme Court rulings of the time; Roe prevented any state from enacting a ban on abortions prior to fetal viability, so therefore he suspended the state law.

McBurney noted that the state legislature could pass the law again, now that the Supreme Court overturned Roe’s protections for bodily autonomy and reproductive rights; under the current Supreme Court guidance, the law would likely stand.

“I called and congratulated Mark Kelly this morning. There were obviously a lot of problems with this election, but there is no path forward in my race. To the thousands of people who helped on my campaign, who made calls, knocked doors, wrote postcards, donated, and hosted events – thank you. To every patriot who voted – thank you. And I especially want to thank my incredible wife Catherine, my parents, and my boys. The campaign trail is not easy for families. We cannot afford to have another election cycle like these midterms. Republicans are the underdogs now.”

Blake Masters with his family.

“I was outspent by over $70 million. That’s what happens when you take on the national Democrat machine, the media, the universities, Big Tech, and woke corporations. So Republicans need to start thinking like underdogs. No more consultant one-size-fits-all strategies. We have to build on what works, scrap what doesn’t. The vast majority of people agree this country is headed in the wrong direction – we have to reach them. I believe in Arizona and I believe in America. We can still save our home. We just have to fight harder and smarter… because we’re running out of time,” says Reptilian alien Blake Masters in his concession statement admitting defeat to a human.

In ironic twist, Hobbs vote total in Az. comes close to 'test' results aired on Fox in October | Just The News https://t.co/RAOV8jZaI2

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) November 15, 2022

Disgraced former Hill “reporter” John Solomon is too much of a scared little bitch to go full MAGA and say the Arizona gubernatorial election was “rigged in advance,” instead relying on a stupid misuse of “ironic” to carry that implication for him. The fanboys had freaked out in late October when local station Fox 10 accidentally aired a test graphic showing Hobbs winning in the vote total. As of Tuesday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after it was called, Hobbs leads Lake 1,269,578 to 1,251,713 votes, far closer than the 1,252,437 to 1,102,326 Hobbs lead shown on the graphic. So really the only thing they got right in the fuckup was a really rough estimate of the vote total and that Hobbs would win. Not sure what’s supposed to be “ironic” or “twisty” about that.

Congressman Tom Emmer defeated rival Jim Banks for the House GOP Whip title 115 to 106 on Tuesday, dealing a blow to Tucker Carlson, whose son Buckley works for Banks, and hates Emmer for apparently shit talking Buckley’s position, Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman reports.

Rick Scott, the guy who went to Italy while he was supposed to be helping the Republicans win control of the Senate is going to challenge the most effective (and evil) legislator in modern history for leadership over their caucus, Punchbowl’s John Bresnahan reports in fewer words.

California Republican Kevin McCarthy won a vote to remain the leader of the Republican conference in the House, but through a split 188-31 election, with MAGAt Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs garnering the opposing votes within the caucus, the New York Times reports.

It’s a good news/bad news outcome for McCarthy:  while it shows he still merits strong support among Republicans, the Freedom Caucus holdouts may put his effort to become Speaker of the House on the rocks if he cannot gain 218 votes within the overall House.  Democrats could, if they choose to, support an upstart candidate like Biggs–generally regarded as a far right loon by members of both Parties–to be Speaker to send Republicans in further disarray.

With Democrats expected to take around 215 seats in the House, any split in the Republican caucus–for any vote, not just the election of the Speaker–would allow Democrats to control legislation passage if the entire fractured GOP conference does not vote as a bloc to pass a bill.

At least two people are dead as at least two Russian missiles struck a farm near the town of Przewodow, Poland, located about five miles from the border with Ukraine, amid a blitz of strikes on Western Ukraine, the AP reports. The Polish victims were reportedly farm workers harvesting grain.

Polish government press officer Piotr Mueller did not immediately confirm the information, but said top leaders had convened an emergency meeting due to a “crisis situation.” While a missile strike on a farm close to the border is almost certainly “unintentional,” the recklessness from which it was wrought speaks to the cavalier and incompetent way with which Russia has conducted this war and now it’s on Poland to keep its dogs leashed in absence of further provocation.

Asked his reaction to comments by Donald Trump disparaging him and Trump’s scheduled Tuesday address in which he’s expected to announce a 2024 presidential run, a smirking Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis responded, “At the end of the day, I-I would just tell people to check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night. … The fact of the matter is, we, um, it was the, the greatest, uh, Republican victory in the history of the state of Florida.”

For the record, while the vast majority of Trump’s endorsements in competitive races lost, DeSantis’s picks fared no better.  He endorsed Joe O’Dea, who lost the Colorado Senate seat to Democratic Michael Bennet.  DeSantis also endorsed Paul LePage in Maine (who lost).  Along with Trump, he endorsed Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, also a loser.  Basically, outside intrastate school board races in Florida, DeSantis’s endorsements on the national scene were just as useless as Trump’s.

Donald Trump is scheduled to make some self-serving announcement Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET (which you can watch live here on National Zero), and with the Republican candidates he endorsed performing horribly during the midterm elections, some people are speculating that instead of kicking off a 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has shifted from announcing a run to make another pronouncement, such as:

• His current wife has opted out of the option year of her contract so she can return to the Motherland, and Trump is declaring himself to be the next contestant on The Bachelor.
• Donald is challenging the results of the Florida election because DeSantis got too many votes.
• Trump will confess to fathering a previously unacknowledged son, named Eric.
• Due to the politically unfriendly environs of New York and Florida, the Trump Organization will reorganize as a North Korean corporation with headquarters in North Korea’s second-largest city, Hamhung, which Kim Jong Un has agreed to rename Pencehung.
• Elon Musk is paying $44 billion for Truth Social, which is news to Musk himself.
• In conversations with Vladimir Putin, Trump has discovered it’s not Russian troops invading Ukraine, but antifa and BLM, who are hiding 8 million uncounted 2016 Trump ballots from Maricopa and Fulton Counties.  
• Trump has been adopted by the Saudi royal family and is changing his name to El Al-whiz bin Pohr.
• A new Trump publishing division will release a volume of Donald Trump’s papers.  They’re not things Trump wrote or received, just the ones he stole from the White House.
• Junior is entering rehab and he’s requesting privacy for his family during this difficult time.
• He had nothing at all to do with the 2022 Republican midterm disaster.  He didn’t even know there was an election. He hardly knew the candidates he endorsed.  They were all just coffee boys.  It’s all Melania’s fault.  

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Tim 4:7). I entered this arena for my family and those all over Nevada and America who believe our country is headed in the wrong direction. This race and the 2022 election cycle didn’t go as we hoped, but I am proud of the race we ran. I would like to thank our countless volunteers, our supporters, and our incredible campaign team. I am enduringly grateful for your tireless efforts, and for your passion for a better Nevada and America. Moving forward, we need to better adjust to our new election laws or we need to work to fix them. But I am confident that any challenge of this election would not alter the ultimate outcome. That is why this morning I called Catherine Cortez Masto to congratulate her on her win.”

“It has been a privilege to meet and get to know so many great Nevadans from every community. We have a remarkable state, full of remarkable people who love their country. We relentlessly campaigned for 16 months, and ran the race we wanted to run. Despite the staggering $120 million spent against us, we ended within half a percentage point of our opponent in the closest Senate race in America. Our team left everything on the field and should be proud. My biggest concern when entering this race was the toll on my wife and our four young children. I am thankful for their love, support, and tremendous sacrifice this year. I now get to return to being the husband and father I strive to be, and return to private life and private practice. I am grateful for the outpouring and encouragement I have received, and I’ll remain forever committed to our state, our country, and our cause,” writes Republican Adam Laxalt in his concession statement.