Category: Uncategorized

Lefty news site Raw Story switched from Disqus to the inferior OpenWeb platform on Thursday, the latest in a string of political-centric sites to either depart from the Big D or quit comments altogether. The reasons why are unclear, but we can say we’ve tried commenting with OpenWeb on FoxNews’s website and really did not like it, so we’re not sure what Raw Story is thinking.

Now we’ll be the first to say Disqus’s administrative backend is complete shit, almost to the point of being useless for moderation purposes. It needs a complete top-to-bottom redesign that is nowhere in sight. Their support sucks, it takes hours to get an answer to a simple fucking question and they don’t give a shit about feedback. It’s overpriced, as we’re now paying $115/month to get a handful of extra features that should’ve been included in the $12/month basic package.

But those are our problems, not our commenters’. They are the heart and soul of our site, and though they may be significantly smaller in number than the lurkers, they are our most critical resource for story tips and feedback on our content, and the vast majority of them are kind, loving, decent folks to us and to each other. It would take nothing short of a head injury to wake up one day and think our needs would ever outweigh theirs. “Oh OpenWeb has all these cool little tabs for pinpointing aggressive language use in our community. Who cares if we piss everyone off by switching away from the system they’ve used for a decade or more to interact on our site?”

Now we’re not going to say anything more about how we feel about Raw Story – how we’ve felt about their site and content long before they switched away from Disqus – as we would like to encourage our readers to think positively when we humbly ask them to go to their still-active Disqus portal, pick a story thread from the last few days, and let a few of them know they’re welcome at National Zero. They may even find this profane rant endearing and stick around.

MyPillow assclown and likely target of a federal criminal investigation for his involvement in a plot to tamper with election equipment in Colorado Mike Lindell on Thursday told convicted felon Steve Bannon he’s planning to sue the FBI and Biden Administration to get his phone back after it was seized while he was waiting in the drive-thru to buy a mushroom Swiss burger at a Minnesota Hardee’s on Tuesday, shitty right wing propaganda website The Post Millennial reports.

Lindell claimed he’s hired “some of the best lawyers in the country,” listing Jeffrey Epstein-linked Alan “Dersh” Dershowitz and two others we’ve never heard of. “We are suing the United States government and the FBI. This isn’t just to get the phone back, this is my First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights were broken… We aren’t going to put up with this, we aren’t going to be the Gestapo like in Nazi Germany. We’re being proactive, “I was on the phone with these attorneys, I said ‘no, I want to sue.’ … We have all the lawyers on the phone, they looked at all these statutes, we are going to go to places that no man has gone before. This will set a precedent. This has to stop,” Lindell ranted, plainly on the edge of a nervous breakdown at least two years overdue.

Newly sworn Alaska Dem Congresswoman Mary Peltola leads former Governor Sarah Palin 53% to 47% of the vote when the numbers were crunched on a Fabrizio-Ward AARP survey simulating the ranked choice election. The Senate election meanwhile is much tighter, as “RINO” Senator Lisa Murkowski in a 50/50 final vote dead heat with MAGA challenger Kelly Tshitkablahblah.

Crazy shit here: Politico reports that disgraced former President Trump is actually has paid $3 million upfront his newest lawyer, former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise to defend against both of the two major onongoing federal criminal investigations into him, AND it’s real money too, not like $3 million in commemorative Impeachment II Victory Special Collector’s Coins or Mega-MAGA-Millions x3000 matching limited time offer act now or whatever. AND unlike before, the money’s coming from donors to Trump’s “Save America” PAC and not from donations to the GOP that were supposed to be spent on trying to win actual political campaigns. That’s insane, right?

Talking to fans at a “College Republicans Tailgate” last week, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said he’s open to a contraception ban in the state, depending on “where the legislatures are.”

“You could take up pretty much anything but you got to be in the legislative session to do that,” Kemp said on audio provided to Heartland Signal from an anonymous Dem source. “I think, I’d have to check and see because there are a lot of legalities,” Kemp added. Definitely not a no.

“Maria Alexeyevna Lvova-Belova (Lvova-Belova) is Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights and, working directly under Putin, has led Russia’s efforts to deport thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. Lvova-Belova’s efforts specifically include the forced adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families, the so-called ‘patriotic education’ of Ukrainian children, legislative changes to expedite the provision of Russian Federation citizenship to Ukrainian children, and the deliberate removal of Ukrainian children by Russia’s forces. Lvova-Belova was designated pursuant to E.O. 14024 for being or having been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of the GoR. Lvova-Belova is also sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the EU, Switzerland, and the UK,” says a list of new US sanctions targets published on the Treasury Department’s website on Thursday. Lvova-Belova is just one of 22 Russians now on the shit list.

There’s quite a few different directions we could go with comparing this cunt (sorry not sorry for using it appropriately here) to American right wingers. The Trump family separation policy, the QAnon shit about trafficking children, the DeSantis obsession with “patriot education,” and just the general affinity much of MAGA World has for Putin’s Russia which will not at all be dented by this horrific state-sanctioned abuse of innocent children caught up in a war.

Thanks for your concern, @wsj. To answer your question: yes, the trains are running on time. pic.twitter.com/ZpJIyFZJvL

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 15, 2022

ALERT! NOT A DRILL! The leaders of two major human trafficking syndicates have been identified! They’re both powerful politicians who publicly act like they support President Trump but have betrayed him on numerous instances! Texas Gov Greg Abbott and Florida Gov Ron DeSantis have transported innocent people to lawless liberal cities and put them in danger! Don’t let them get away with it! They’re violating the law and the authorities won’t do anything to stop them, so it’s time to take matters into your own hands! It’s your Constitutional duty and right to bear arms in the fight against tyrants! TAKE THEM DOWN PATRIOTS! WHERE YOU GO ONE YOU GO ALL!

Asked on the Hugh Hewitt Show on Thursday if he would still run for president in 2024 if under indictment, disgraced former President Trump did not answer other than to say there’s no prohibition on him doing so, then warned “I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.” When Hewitt said “legacy media will say you’re attempting to incite violence,” Trump bullshitted and pretended he didn’t just say what he just said.

Florida-based MAGA commentator and former Newsmax TV host John Cardillo’s side gig as an arms dealer in Eastern Europe, which sounds like a lucrative business that turns out to be even more lucrative when one fucks off and don’t actually deliver the goods for which they were paid. According to the Daily Beast, Cardillo took $196,250 upfront from a Ukrainian-American businessman for an order of body armor to be donated to cops valiantly helping to keep order as their country suffers from a brutal Russian invasion and never delivered. The businessman, Florida resident Michael Bogachek, sued Cardillo on May 27th, alleging the obvious piece of shit just cashed the check and never sent the 250 high-grade, AK-47 round-resistant, armor kits – supposedly to have been sourced from Serbia – to an unspecified police agency in Ukraine.

Cardillo’s lawyers claim the sale was initiated but Bogachek never produced an end-user certificate showing the armor would reach its intended recipients with whatever police department Bogachek had meant to send it to. True or not, Cardillo hasn’t returned the money to Bogachek nor has he provided any proof that the armor was purchased but sitting in a warehouse somewhere for want of the certificate before it can be shipped. It’s also far from the first time Cardillo has faced legal trouble for ripping people off, as the Beast’s report details a semi-lengthy list of shit this scumbag has pulled, including a $16,274 judgement from iHeartRadio after Cardillo welched on some deal, and then refused to pay his lawyer in the case, $8,684.83 still outstanding.

The former Newsmax host also took the far-right stance on Ukraine itself earlier this year, tweeting he “couldn’t care less” if Russia invaded. “Just send us their hot women and call it a day.”

Former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in 2018 reportedly warned the fat former president he had to issue to order to lower flags to half-staff after the death of Senator John McCain or otherwise something that’ll probably end up happening anyway would come to pass after the Donald’s long overdue death, Axios reports on a preview from the upcoming book “The Divider” by New York Times reporter Peter Baker and the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser.

“If you don’t support John McCain’s funeral, when you die, the public will come to your grave and piss on it,” Kelly told Trump during his meltdown after McCain’s August 2018 death from brain cancer. Trump did end up issuing the order, but not before National Zero publisher Spartan drove past a McDonald’s on Long Island, New York and saw that the American flag (and the “Golden Arches” flag flying below it) in front of the location had been lowered to half staff. To think a fucking McDonald’s (which maybe the franchisee is a Navy veteran, who knows) had its flag at half-staff to honor a vetern and war hero hours before the President had to be cowed into issuing an order to do so was one of the moments that truly underscored the absolute malevolence of the Trump Reich.

And Kelly was lying. There’s no way anyone who would want to piss on Trump’s grave (which there are tens of millions) would ever be allowed to get close enough for at least a decade or two after it finally happens. The grave will be a 24-7 pilgrimage site for the type of people who would shoot anyone spotted chugging a 72 ounce Big Gulp cup of iced tea, even if disguised with a MAGA hat.

Here are the 5 AM AST Thu, Sep 15 Key Messages for Tropical Storm #Fiona. For the latest forecast updates, visit https://t.co/tW4KeGe9uJ pic.twitter.com/T8C7gHmINr

— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 15, 2022

PresidentJoe Biden announced early Thursday that a tentative deal had been reached to avert a strike by railroad workers that had threatened to seize up American commerce, the AP reports.

“These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned,” Biden said. “The agreement is also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come.”

Trump’s last White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has complied with the subpoena issued as part of the Justice Department investigation into actions and events surrounding January 6th, the effort to issue fraudulent slates of electors and other Trump efforts to undermine the 2020 election results, CNN reports.

The Justice Department instructed Meadows to turn over the same documents and information he provided the House Select Committee investigating the Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, and Meadows complied.

The request for the same tranche of information given to the House Committee shows the Justice Department investigators are now following a pathway laid out for them in the televised committee hearings, though it may not be the other path investigators are following.

Hamstrung by state law, an Iowa judge ordered a 17-year-old victim of serial rape who killed her rapist to pay $150,000 to the family of her rapist, the Des Moines Register reports, with a GoFundMe page set up to help nearly doubling that among in a day.

Pieper Lewis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury for stabbing to death 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, whom Lewis said raped her multiple times when she was 15-years-old.   She was sentenced to five years of probation and a deferred judgment that will allow her to have her record expunged if she completes probation without issue.  Also, Lewis was ordered to pay Brooks’ family $150,000, a stipulation for guilty pleas and verdicts in criminal cases where the life of another is taken put into effect in 1997.

Once the news of the payment stipulation hit the internet, wallets opened up, with a GoFundMe page set up for Lewis’s financial needs surpassing $286,000 at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday, raised from 7,142 donors.  Social media campaigns boosted the story, and victim advocacy groups and rape survivors started raising money for her.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday revived hundreds of lawsuits against Ohio State University over sexual abuse by a an athletic department doctor that had been previously dismissed over the statute of limitations expiry, ruling that the plaintiffs had not fully discovered their claims until 2018 when the scandal became public, likely opening Ohio State to discovery and certain current and former personnel – demented ex-OSU wrestling team assistant coach Jim Jordan included – to depositions, MSNBC legal contributor Tristan Snell reports.

Disgraced former President Trump in 2018 told King Abdullah II of Jordan he could have the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Washington Post reports on an excerpt from “The Divider” by New York Times reporter Peter Baker and the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser. “I thought I was having a heart attack,” Abdullah II told a friend in 2018. “I couldn’t breathe. I was bent doubled-over.” It should go without saying the United States does not control the West Bank and Trump was in no position to offer it to the monarch. Plus the Palestinians kind of hate the Jordanian leadership.

The book also recounts Trump not ignoring Melania’s early 2020 pleas to take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously. “You’re blowing this. This is serious. It’s going to be really bad, and you need to take it more seriously than you’re taking it.” Donald “just dismissed her,” Glasser and Baker write.

With a 12:01 a.m. Friday deadline to resolve the labor dispute between rail workers and rail freight companies quickly approaching, Amtrak has canceled most of its long-distance routes starting Thursday, USA Today reports.

The routes along the popular Northeast corridor, including the Acela, will not be impacted.  Although Amtrak is not a party to the labor dispute, it share rails with the freight trains that are, and the organization is planning for some tracks to be blocked by freight that cannot be unloaded.

At 12:01 a.m. Friday, a federally-mandated “cooling off” period ends, and 115,000 rail workers could choose to go on strike or the freight carriers might lock them out, essentially shutting down rail freight across the country.  With the help of federal mediators, the coalition of six freight companies have reached agreements with eight of the 12 unions involved, but not the two largest that represent the conductors and engineers.

Trump Justice Department coup attempt plotter former Acting Associate Attorney General Jeffrey Clark told the DC Bar Association he’s under federal criminal investigation for felony violations of false statements, conspiracy, and obstruction, CNN reports on what’s kind of a “no shit” revelation given they seized his computers and phones in a 6 AM raid on his home back in June.

Clark, who was nearly installed by Trump as Acting Attorney General in the days before the Capitol riot before the Donald backed off at the end of a tense confrontation with DOJ leadership in the Oval Office over his insistence they declare the 2020 election to be “corrupt,” made this disclosure of the ongoing criminal investigation to the DC Bar Association as part of their inquiry into professional misconduct for the very same treasonous attempt to seize power at the DOJ.