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Evidently bored with polls, positive economic numbers and record stock market returns, Vice President Kamala Harris’s media blitz, the destruction wrought by and still to come from two massive hurricanes, the MAGA conspiracy bullshit about both, the real-time mental collapse of the republican nominee, the mainstream media this week decided that Democrats were starting to worry about Harris’s chances of defeating convicted felon former President Trump, beginning with the Wall Street Journal asserting that “Kamala Harris Struggling to Break Through With Working Class, Democrats Fear” on Tuesday and CNN with “Democrats grow anxious as Election Day nears” on Wednesday.

Last and certainly the least respected of any national political media outlet falsely presenting itself as “neutral,” was The Hill with “Democrats start to hit the panic button,” in which one of their chatbots generated text saying “Democrats’ nerves are at an all-time high. Two months ago – even a month ago – they were feeling bullish about Vice President Harris’s prospects of defeating former President Trump. But now, with less than a month to go until Election Day, they’re increasingly worried about a number of issues plaguing the Democratic nominee’s campaign. On Tuesday, there was grumbling from some Democrats about the vice president’s interview on CBS’s ’60 Minutes.'”

You hear that Dems? The Narrative™ says you have to grumble AND hit the panic button AND fear Harris struggling to break through with working class AND grow anxious! Get busy with that! The Honeymoon’s finally over, and even if Harris’s lead in this week’s Economist/YouGov survey grew to 49 to 45 among likely voters you need to put on your adult diapers and piss yourself dry.

Republican Taunton, Massachusetts Mayor Shauna O’Connell’s defense lawyer on Tuesday told a court that her husband Ted won’t testify against her at trial and seeks to have the charges including assault and battery on a family member and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon dropped as they’ve managed to work out their “martial issues” and reconciled since the July domestic altercation in which the mayor drunkenly bit Ted and hit him with a crowbar, Boston 25 reports.

Ted defended his abuser more or less from the get-go. “I apologize for calling the police, I apologize to my wife and the people of Taunton. It was a huge mistake,” he told reporters following his wife’s arraignment just three days after the Republican elected official brutally assaulted him.

Trump: America is not a great country right now

Podcaster: It’s always a great country

Trump: See, that’s where I disagree pic.twitter.com/XuRrKJrNr8

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 9, 2024

Convicted felon former President Trump’s team tells NBC News that the fat bastard will be holding a rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday the 27th, the third-to-last weekend day before the election, 95-ish miles from the nearest swing state in Pennsylvania.

What the fuck is this moron doing? Not complaining that he’s campaigning in California, Colorado, and now New York when he has effectively zero chance of winning those states so much as expressing bewilderment that he’s wasting a significant portion of what little time left before the day that will determining whether or not he escapes accountability for his crimes.

In your “no shit” story of the morning (well, second, if you count the Kremlin vouching for Bob Woodward’s reporting), CNN’s Brian Stelter on Wednesday noted in his daily newsletter that the Harris campaign confirmed to him on Tuesday that the vice president will be showing up for the debate they proposed on October 23rd, with spokesman Brian Fallon saying “Trump has ducked 60 Minutes and debates, and refused to release medical records” in the campaign’s closing weeks “as his speeches show him to be less and less stable,” after Stelter printed the network’s ultimatum.

We knew that because Harris already accepted when they first proposed it. They didn’t need to both-sides it. Possibly more interesting is the silence so far from convicted felon former President Trump and his team. Recall that in January it took less than an hour for large-headed spokesman Steven Cheung to respond to ABC News and its New Hampshire affiliate WMUR’s invite to a primary debate against Nikki “Birdbrain” Haley and heels-wearing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Granite State with “There’s a debate?” and that was them just laughing off a pointless exhibition game in an race Trump already had locked. This time around it’s been nearly 24 hours since CNN again invited him to what would be a considerably more important and consequential showdown they still haven’t said anything in response to the Thursday noon deadline to accept.

Doesn’t mean they’re going to say anything at all. They might just continue to act like it didn’t happen right up until it expires. But the fact that there’s nothing yet could mean they’ll accept – or at the very least are coming up with all sorts of bullshit demands to “justify” saying no.

“At 800 AM EDT (1200 UTC), the eye of Hurricane Milton was located near latitude 25.0 North, longitude 84.8 West. Milton is moving toward the northeast near 16 mph (26 km/h). A northeastward motion is expected through tonight. A turn toward the east-northeast and east is expected on Thursday and Friday. On the forecast track, the center of Milton will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico today, make landfall along the west-central coast of Florida late tonight or early Thursday morning, and move off the east coast of Florida over the western Atlantic Ocean Thursday afternoon. Maximum sustained winds are near 155 mph (250 km/h) with higher gusts.”

“Milton is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Milton is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the west-central coast of Florida tonight. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 30 miles (45 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 125 miles (205 km). The minimum central pressure based on NOAA and Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter data is 915 mb (27.02 inches),” says an advisory bulletin from the National Hurricane Center warning that the storm surge-high tide combo could push in waves reaching up to 15 feet between Anna Maria Island at the southern end of Tampa Bay to Boca Grande, just north of Fort Myers, with the 12 ft max range extending north to Anclote River and southward to Bonita Springs, which sits between Fort Myers and Naples.

🚨NEW FLASH —> Humans cannot create or control hurricanes.

Anyone who thinks they can, needs to have their head examined. https://t.co/ILZsbXPi0K

— Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) October 9, 2024

Apparently realizing that there are actually at least some limits to the kind of horseshit people will tolerate, Oklahoma Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters on Monday announced that he was loosening the specifications for the 55,000 Bibles he’s using taxpayer funds to purchase and put in classrooms after his attempt to pretty blatantly make sure that either one of two “patriotic”-themed editions endorsed by convicted felon former President Trump when at least one, probably both, of the publishers are paying fatass a royalty percentage from every sale, the Associated Press reports.

“The left-wing media hates Donald Trump so much, and they hate the Bible so much, they will lie and go to any means necessary to stop this initiative from happening,” Walters said in a video announcing he was capitulating to the woke mob. Walters’ spokesman Dan Issett confirmed the RFP had been updated and that the bid period would be amended after a state budget office told them it was illegal to rig the bidding process. “Unfortunately, there have been false reports that have been repeated by numerous, supposedly credible, news organizations that the state’s RFP was catered to one specific organization,” said Issett. He is correct because even though the AP’s report says it was solely the $60 Lee Greenwood “God Bless the USA” Bible that qualified, according to the Oklahoman there was another edition, the also-Trump-endorsed $90 “We The People Bible,” that qualified.

Walters’ new specs don’t require that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence be in the Bible. Why the fuck they even need to put a Bible in every public school classrooms is another can of worms, but at least the son of a bitch got cowed out of his Trump grift attempt. Baby steps.

“Legitimate” Governor of Arizona Kari Lake tells Politico Playbook she’s going to be voting early for herself and her Orange Jesus after having spent the last two years railing against it and vowing one day-only voting if elected governor, specifically telling ABC News that the Constitution “doesn’t say election season” or “election month,” and that “the longer you drag that out, the more fraught with problems there are,” trying to toss voters’ absentee ballots after she lost, and so on.

So yeah, that’s all out this year. “I’m voting early because it gives us the upper hand,” said Lake in a statement to Playbook. “The earlier we bank our votes, the more time we have to chase down and turn in every last ballot. This is how we win – by being smart, staying ahead, and making sure every vote counts. We’re going to deliver a huge win for Arizona and secure victories for President Trump, myself, and Republicans across the state!” A spokesworm for Lake’s senate campaign said the crazy asshole and her team “are determined to ensure that every ballot mailed out is properly filled in, returned, and counted, working tirelessly to guarantee that every voters’ voice is heard.”

🤬 pic.twitter.com/bGEhBFHqeE

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 9, 2024

Large-headed Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung and his rapey-mustached Kremlin counterpart Dimitry Peskov aren’t on the same page with regard to whether Bob Woodward made up the story about convicted felon former President Trump having “secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use” during the height of the pandemic in 2020, as NBC News reports that Peskov on Wednesday confirmed it and added that “we also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic,” whatever that means.

Peskov did however deny that his boss, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and Cheung’s boss had spoken over the phone since 2021. At least they got their stories lined up on that one.

Normally, National Zero doesn’t delve into the muck and mud of local politics, but a borough election deserves some attention when that borough is close to the size of New Jersey, the home of nearly 100,000 people, sits in the middle of Alaska, went to Trump by 15 percentage points in the last election, but flipped to a Democratic mayor after the final tally of last week’s election, according to Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Grier Hopkins, the son of a one-time mayor of Fairbanks North Star Borough, beat his Republican opponent by 154 votes out of 19,487 cast.  A third-party candidate promising to find “endgame solutions” to make the isolated region home to the city of Fairbanks both energy- and food-independent during his three-year term took 705 votes.

Home to nearly 1 in 7 Alaskans, Fairbanks North Star Borough electing a Democrat who campaigned on encouraging development and raising taxes to fund public education and build new parks is notable less than a month before a national election, when every tea leaf is being examined with a microscope.

“Fox has obtained a fact sheet assembled by the majority side of House Appropriations Committee about disaster aid,” the network’s Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram posts, careful not to use the word “Republican” because No True Republican would dare say the rest of the post:

“It says that FEMA ‘has enough funding in the short-term to address immediate needs for both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.’ It also declares there is ‘no funding connection between’ the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund. It adds there is ‘no intermingling of funding between these two programs.’ It adds that ‘the only connection is that both programs are administered by FEMA.’”

So House Republicans say Trump’s claims about FEMA money for hurricane response being diverted to migrant care are complete bullshit.  Now if they’ll only state the “only $750 per victim” claim is a lie, too, FEMA might be able to actually help people.

Caving to a Brazilian court’s order to ban certain accounts known to have spread election misinformation during the nation’s 2022 presidential election and paying a $5 million fine, Elon Musk secured dead-named Twitters return to the world’s seventh most-populous nation, the BBC reports.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Musk’s company to cease operations in Brazil at the end of August because Musk refused to silence the accounts which were found to be at the root of misinformation claiming Donald Trump’s buddy and fellow sore loser Jair Bolsonaro was cheated out of his election, leading to an all-too-familiar scene on January 8th, 2023 when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters took over government buildings in Brasília.

The platform formerly known as Twitter “is proud to return to Brazil.  Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process,” Musk’s PR team posted without admitting their concessions. “We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.”  Note the “…within the boundaries of the law…” caveat, meaning if a second Trump administra–(gag) admini–(blurf) if the unthinkable happens, Musk would follow the instructions given to him to shut down dissenters.

“Today the Trump-Vance Campaign is asking Governor Roy Cooper and the North Carolina General Assembly to swiftly enact an expansion of voter access for North Carolinians who live in the areas of the state suffering from the impact of Hurricane Helene. ‘These 10 improvements in voting access in North Carolina will ensure the people who have already suffered from the storm don’t lose their right to participate in this important election. Swift action from the North Carolina General Assembly and the Governor will ensure the people of their state have their voices heard on November 5th,’ said Trump-Vance Campaign Campaign Managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita.”

“(1) Ensure Election Day Voting Locations provide the ability for any voter in the impacted county to vote from that location, instead of just their local precinct. (2) Expanding bipartisan election official teams (known as MAT or Multipartisan Assistance Teams) to have the ability to assist displaced voters in requesting and delivering absentee ballots to the county boards. (3) Allow voters who have been displaced to another North Carolina county to have the ability to deliver their absentee ballot in the new county or to the State Board,” and so on, the campaign wrote in a press release.

We were to understand that changing the rules to expand voter access before an election, even if there’s a huge disaster that prevents people from voting in person, was a big no-no in 2020. And, even better, this press release came hours before another saying “RNC SUES TO STOP ILLEGAL VOTING FROM OVERSEAS.” Earlier on Tuesday: “RNC DEFENDS ELECTION INTEGRITY IN OHIO. Last month was “RNC FIGHTS ILLEGAL MAIL BALLOT POLICIES IN PENNSYLVANIA,” and so on.

Speaking at a fundraiser in California on Tuesday afternoon, Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and anchor on the bowling team Tim Walz said he favored abolishing the Electoral College that determines the winner of the US Presidential race, Politico reports.

“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” Walz said according to pool reporters in the room at the private fundraiser with California Governor and man Ron DeSantis aspires to be Gavin Newsom. “We need a national popular vote that is something. But that’s not the world we live in.”

“No one buys that Kamala Harris has the capability to do that job,” the MAGA’s dime store Taylor Swift wannabe Lara Trump, who happens to lead the RNC, declares, “and, and polls like that I think are absolutely ridiculous.  I get slipped beverage napkins everytime I get on an airplane saying ‘We can’t wait to vote for Trump,’ ‘Go Trump,’ ‘Trump 2024,’ or people just comin’ up ta me these days, Laura, everywhere I go, saying everywhere I go about how excited they are to vote and vote early when you go vote for Donald Trump.”

It should be noted that Lara Trump flies on private planes paid for by her father-in-law or her employer.  The political employer, not the Spotify producer.

With Disney World and other area attractions shutting down as Hurricane Milton–now a Category 5 storm with a four-mile-wide eye–helps Mother Nature reclaim Florida as swampland, American Airlines announced it’s added enough flights to carry 2,000 more frantic passengers out of the region, ABC News reports.  There’s no word if the ghost of Barbara Bush thinks the evacuees have it much better in their evacuation locations than they had it at home in Florida.

Demonstrating that Republican racism has deep roots, the former First Lady and then First Mother of the Shrub, Barb is best remembered for looking at the predominantly Black evacuees from Hurricane Katrina in 2006 who filled a Houston sports arena saying,  “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.  And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway,” Barb said, “so this is working very well for them.”

A very non-exhaustive list of people and things House and Senate Republicans have sued, subpoenaed, investigated, threatened to investigate, or threatened to hold in contempt/impeach President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Chris Wray, and Homeland Security Secretary Alex Mayorkas over so far during the 118th Congress:

Getting a series of checks in repayment for a pickup truck, having a brother who ripped off some healthcare company, the transcript of Biden’s interview with documents fuckup special counsel Robert Hur, the FBI communications with Twitter and Facebook before the 2020 election when they throttled the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop for a day, a fake report about Biden taking bribes from Romania written by a Russian intel agent, gas stoves, that one of the Israeli hostages released from Gaza is related to a woman who bought one of Hunter Biden’s paintings, the cocaine some asshole left in a White House coat check, why Volodymyr Zelensky was allowed to visit a weapons factory in Pennsylvania with Governor Josh Shapiro before the 2024 election, whether ABC News colluded with Kamala Harris before the debate last month, that guy who left the DOJ to take a job with the Manhattan DA’s office because that meant Garland was secretly directing a local case against Trump, why a bunch of intel professionals signed a letter calling Hunter’s laptop Russian disinformation, the “Ministry of Information” they lost their shit over last year, Hillary Clinton, Judge Tanya Chutkan, why it took so long for the Air Force to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon after it floated across the entire country, the House January 6th Select Committee’s investigation, the US Navy for supposedly withholding for four days that they knew that the Titan sub had imploded to distract the media from Hunter Biden, the guy who started “White Dudes for Harris,” Judge Juan Merchan, Judge Merchan’s daughter, Joe Biden’s ghostwriter, “censorship,” Dr Anthony Fauci…

Triumphant after a weeks-long hunt to track and kill a murderous hippopotamus, villagers in the Nigerian town of Yauri recently paraded the remains of the beast down before it was butchered and its flesh distributed to locals who were hungry hungry for some hippo, the BBC reports.

“We are a town of fishermen and farmers and this hippo has made many to stop going out due to fear of an attack,” resident Sani Yauri – yeah he’s got the same name as the town – told the BBC, adding that the state’s Emir had ordered the hunt after one of his staff was thrashed to death by the hippo. “It also seriously injured another person – not also forgetting the damage it regularly does to our farmlands. We are happy it has been killed and people came out in jubilation – and also got their share of the meat.” Another guy, Isa Jamilu, said he was relieved to finally be able to return home to his rice farm weeks after the hippo had chased him away. Locals had to kill the bastard with homemade spears, which by the sound of it seems to have taken a pretty freaking long time.