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Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a 2019 death sentence for former dictator General Pervez Musharraf, who a lower court found guilty of treason and abrogating the country’s constitution for his coup and junta that lasted from 1999 to 2008, DPS International reports.

Musharraf was unavailable for comment on the decision as he died in exile in Dubai last February, his remains repatriated and buried at a military cemetery in Karachi. It’s not clear how the sentence will be carried out given those circumstances, but we guess that exhuming his skeleton and tying it to a post in front of a firing squad is a possibility. Pakistan’s a funny place like that.

Bureau of Labor Statistics: “The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent in December on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.1 percent in November, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.4 percent before seasonal adjustment. The index for shelter continued to rise in December, contributing over half of the monthly all items increase. The energy index rose 0.4 percent over the month as increases in the electricity index and the gasoline index more than offset a decrease in the natural gas index. The food index increased 0.2 percent in December, as it did in November.”

“The all items index rose 3.4 percent for the 12 months ending December, a larger increase than the 3.1-percent increase for the 12 months ending November. The all items less food and energy index rose 3.9 percent over the last 12 months, after rising 4.0 percent over the 12 months ending November. The energy index decreased 2.0 percent for the 12 months ending December, while the food index increased 2.7 percent over the last year. The food index rose 0.2 percent in December, as it did in November. The index for food at home increased 0.1 percent over the month, also the same as in the previous month. Four of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased.”

Police in Nassau County, New York responded to an apparently false bomb threat called into the home of Judge Arthur Engoron on the morning just before he’s set to hear closing arguments in state Attorney General Letitia James’s $370 million fraud lawsuit against fat former President Trump’s corrupt business empire, the Daily Beast reports on the usual day-to-day MAGA terrorism.

*Comer has no credibility.

*Comer never took my whistleblower case serious and it had MASSIVE corruption in the subject matter of NYC and the illegal Alien invasion.

*Comer should not be the chair.

*Comer where is the slam dunk evidence you promised? You know the indisputable… https://t.co/gMoLF3IL76

— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) January 11, 2024

Continued from after the stupid ellipses cutoff in Santos’s overlong “clapback” tweet: “*Comer where is the slam dunk evidence you promised? You know the indisputable docs to impeach Biden once and for all? *Comer take several seats back and let someone else take over the committee because you clearly are failing with your gross negligence and incompetence. The GOP base has been let down by yet another swamp creature with no capability to deliver on campaign promises… Hunter was there, MTG was ready, Perry was ready… why not swear him in Comer?”

Quite refreshing from a guy liberated from the need to spew the company line – with the possible exception of the second line about NYC invasion something something that sounds like bullshit. Of course it’s understandable that Georgie would be harsh on Comer, who was one of just a handful of the House GOP’s most ubiquitous assholes to vote in favor of expelling Santos last month.

A new Emerson College survey of New Hampshire primary voters does not find either President Joe Biden or fat former President Trump in the lead of a general election matchup this November because they either didn’t ask the question or decided not to publish it, making it harder to shake the perception they’re a pro-MAGA propaganda operation masquerading as a mainstream pollster.

What else are we supposed to think if Emerson could poll the 2024 general election matchup in November 2023 but not in January 2024? All primaries are open in New Hampshire and if a voter’s already on the phone telling them their intent for the primary then why the hell couldn’t they take another 30 seconds to ask who they want to vote for in the general? We would love to see another explanation for this than the one we made up just now: That they weren’t happy to find Biden ahead of Trump in their last poll so they fucked off on it this time. Change our minds here, Emerson.

Anyway, in the findings Emerson actually did publish their Orange Allah leads Nimrata “Nikki” Haley 44 to 28 percent with Chris Christie – who dropped out after the poll was conducted – at 12 percent. Heels-wearing Florida Gov Ron DeSantis is in fourth at an abysmal 7 percent support. Half of Christie’s voters said they would back Haley as their second choice, which would still see Trump in a double digit lead over the Confederate-curious former South Carolina governor in the Granite State.

On the Dem side Biden as a write-in candidate leads Field of Dreams guy Dean Phillips 49 to 16 percent, with New Age weirdo Marianne Williamson in third at 5 percent and 27 percent undecided.

A Thursday report from Axios on the lead-up to Hunter Biden’s surprise Wednesday appearance on Capitol Hill which bugged the absolute hell out of Republicans on the House Oversight Committee contains the sentence “Hunter’s team didn’t loop in White House aides about his plans – the latest example of the president’s son taking control of his legal defense, three people familiar with the matter told Axios,” as if Hunter’s lawyers coordinating with the Biden Administration would have been somehow not the dumbest fucking move possible in a time when these assholes are just looking for any and every excuse to make this about actual “oversight.”

Who writes this shit? How goddamned simple can one be to not ascribe any tenacity whatsoever to an actor who thus far has has managed to repeatedly outmaneuver his pursuers and make them look like complete morons again and again? Abbe Lowell is pretty fucking smart. Hunter is obviously smart enough to listen to him and follow his lead. Their adversaries are stuck reacting to them.

“Hunter’s team believed that it was in the interests of both the White House and Hunter to not involve President Biden’s aides in the team’s strategy conversations,” Axios continues. NO SHIT.

The one actual sort of valuable “scoop” in the article is that their source says that Hunter was fully ready to testify – and even went through lengthy prep sessions beforehand – should Comer have sworn him in which, again, says a lot about his chess game against guys who suck at checkers.

Axios lets Fox News anchor Dana Perino do the scoring for them, pasting in her quote from the frenzied coverage after the showdown: “If you’re going to do a stunt, it was a pretty good one.”

A ChiCom government lackey said the Xi Regime is “highly concerned” that the Biden Administration is “weaponizing” export controls to make the commies’ lives harder by interfering with their ability to procure extremely specialized lithography equipment required for manufacturing advanced semiconductors, CNBC reports on the opposite of what the MAGA kids say about Biden and China.

“We are highly concerned about the United States’ direct intervention and interference in the issue of high-tech exports by Dutch companies to China,” ChiCom Ministry of Commerce spokeswoman Shu Jueting told reporters Thursday.”The United States has instrumentalized and weaponized export control issues,” Shu said, calling on Dutch lithography manufacturer ASML to “respect the spirit of the contract and support businesses in conducting compliant trade.”

He just said it pic.twitter.com/CrqqmfvL7z

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 11, 2024

After ships from its coalition shot down 21 drones and missiles targeting ships in the Red Sea Tuesday night (local time), officials from the United States and the United Kingdom said that direct action against the Houthi rebels firing the weapons may be coming, the BBC reports.  When asked about potential strikes, the UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said, “Watch this space.”

With the Suez Canal a vital shipping lane for trade between Europe and Asia, the Houthis targeting commercial shipping has worried shipping lines enough that 20% of normal traffic is re-routing around the area to avoid the risk of missile or pirate attacks.

One British and three US destroyers, as well as fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, shot down 18 drones, two cruise missiles and one ballistic missile, all of which were supplied to the Houthis by Iran.

With the nation now ten days away from hitting a trite metaphorical cliff, people who claim fiscal superiority have blocked a procedural vote to protest a deal their Party leadership made with Senate Democrats and the White House, making it more likely that the government will have to pass another stopgap continuing resolution before the budget bargain can be passed.

According to the Washington Post, thirteen Republicans joined Democrats to sink the rule allowing the House to consider upcoming legislation, a vote that traditionally goes along Party lines.  By voting down the rule, the thirteen Republicans force the bills to go through longer parliamentary procedures.  While it won’t stop the inevitable, it delays the passage of the budget deal.

The last time this bloc of far-right Republicans undertook such a protest was immediately after Preacher of the House Mike Johnson took the gavel in November 2023, to protest his reliance on Democrats to pass a continuing resolution.  In June 2023, after then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy made a similar deal with the Biden White House, the far-right faction also blocked the required procedural vote.

What a wondrous age we live in! Television available only to those who pay for a cable package is right at our fingertips if some weirdos on the internet are willing to risk civil action to carry these events. Now we can hate watch these shitshows together as a National Zero family.

https://youtu.be/w555Tz8__-A

On top as always is the Orange Tyrant’s LIVE and not prerecorded town hall with Fox News anchors Martha McCallum and Bret Baier – Baier’s been a pain in Trump’s fat ass lately so expect drama.

With open enrollment closing in less than a week and the Republican presidential frontrunner vowing to completely dismantle the program, a record-high 20 million people have signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, the Associated Press reports.

The number is a 25% increase from last year when 16.3 million Americans got health insurance through the exchange, and it will likely go up before the January 16th deadline.  Many of those getting insurance through the exchanges were previously covered under Medicaid but lost coverage after pandemic-related regulations banning state governments from removing people from government-sponsored plans expired.

Indiana-based engine manufacturer Cummins will recall 630,000 Ram 2500 and 3500 heavy-duty pickup trucks fitted with its diesel engines to remedy a software function that limits nitrogen oxide pollutants during emissions testings but allows excess emissions during normal operation, thwarting efforts to reduce automobile pollution, the Associated Press reports.

The recall will cover vehicles built from 2013 to 2019 equipped with a “defeat device” designed to circumvent emissions testing, allowing hundreds of thousands of vehicles to spew tons of carcinogenic pollutants into the air.  Cummins will pay $1.675 billion in civil fines and penalties, plus another $325 million for environmental remedies, in the largest settlement under the 1963 Clean Air Act.

The Palins reimagined in the Rockies is turning into a more scandalous version than the original.  Patriarch Jayson Boebert is facing a total of six charges–three felonies and three lesser charges–for a confrontation with his wife, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “little bitch” Lauren Boebert, at a local restaurant when they were reportedly talking about “new partners” and for a later fight with his 18-year-old son, the Daily Beast reports.

Creating a disturbance at a restaurant and claiming his wife struck him–police say they did not find any evidence of wrongdoing by Lauren Boebert–Jayson Boebert ignored police officers’ instruction and walked out of the restaurant, declaring, “I’m gonna get so fucking drunk, I don’t even wanna talk to you motherfuckers.”

And apparently he did:  later that day, Jayson got in the face of new dad, 18-year-old Tyler, about leaving his infant child asleep in a basket of laundry.  Reportedly very intoxicated, Jayson allegedly stuck his hand in Tyler’s mouth as if he were trying to pull out a tooth. The pair fought, after which Jayson took a rifle from the home and left.  The story is unclear about how and when Jayson was apprehended. 

“Today, Recall Vos launched a petition campaign to recall Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Vos has said ‘I will try as hard as I can to make sure Donald Trump is not the nominee in 2024.’ Recall Vos intends to have a recall election in June 2024 to remove Vos from office in 2024 because he is blocking fair elections in Wisconsin, Vos mis-lead [sic] the Assembly in the impeachment process of [Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator] Meghan Wolfe [they spelled her name wrong, it’s “Meagan”], and Vos supported the unlawful drop boxes. ‘As a 4th generation Wisconsinite, we need to build confidence in our 2024 elections. Robin Vos has done the opposite. Wisconsin deserves better. Together we can’ said Jay Scroeder, Director of Recall Vos.”

“Petitioner Matt Snorek said ‘Robin Vos is out of touch with reality and no longer represents the voice of the people. The simple fact that Vos promised to do everything in his power to block President Trump from the 2024 ballot tells you everything you need to know.’ Recall Vos has also opened its campaign headquarters in Union Grove near the Piggly Wiggly at 4350 67th Drive in the Maple Grove Shopping Center where residents of the 63rd Assembly District may sign the Recall Petition seven days per week,” says Recall Vos in their launch statement, emphasis added on the part about the “Piggly Wiggly” because that was very unintentionally fucking funny.

Any National Zero readers in the area should please by all means go sign the petition if you want to help deprive the Wisconsin Assembly Republicans of a mostly competent and effective leader.

As expected, fat former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made it official at a Wednesday event in New Hampshire and dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, clearing the way for former South Carolina Governor Nimrata “Nikki” Haley to pick up probably most of Christie’s circa 10 percent support in the Granite State and – if some polls are to be believed and others not – actually be in a strong position to win the First in the Nation primary against the demented Orange God Emperor.

Just prior to the start of his campaign un-launch event, Christie was heard on a hot mic saying Haley is “going to get smoked. You and I know both know it…she’s not up to this” and “DeSantis called me, petrified that I would” something something, per the Washington Post’s Dylan Wells.

Clearly continuing to panic over how badly things went for him during arguments at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, fat former President Trump on Wednesday launched into yet another all-caps rant on Truth Social, writing “IF IMMUNITY IS NOT GRANTED TO A PRESIDENT, EVERY PRESIDENT THAT LEAVES OFFICE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED BY THE OPPOSING PARTY. WITHOUT COMPLETE IMMUNITY, A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY FUNCTION!” as if he was a properly functional president. As if it wasn’t just hours after one of his former aides told a national television audience that in 2020 Trump demanded that a still-unknown staffer be executed for treason for leaking to the media that he was rushed to the White House’s nuclear bunker during racial justice protests on the streets outside.

🚨BREAKING: Letitia James visited the Biden White House in April 2022, August 2023, and July 2023, according to White House visitor logs. pic.twitter.com/ZO5dt904bk

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) January 10, 2024

Trump also posted a screencap of the above tweet, writing “The purpose of the visit was to illegally coordinate the prosecution of your favorite President, me! This is the Greatest Witch Hunt of all time, but we will win and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” You don’t even need to click on the images of the White House visitor logs to see that these “visits” were events attended by dozens and hundreds of other people. The first one on April 8th, 2022, was a celebration of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, so it might’ve made sense for a Black female attorney general to accept an invitation to congratulate the first Black woman to the nation’s highest court.

August 31st, 2023 was Overdose Awareness Day and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff gave remarks at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to announce a new $450 billion funding package to combat opioid overdose deaths. On July 17th, 2023 James tweeted a video of herself at a briefing with Vice President Kamala Harris for the same reason, opioid enforcement.

She was doing her job and these cucks can’t handle it.

Fat former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will suspend his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday, giving into pressure from New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu to clear a path for former South Carolina Governor Nimrata “Nikki” Haley to take the Granite State, though Christie will not be endorsing Haley or any other candidate, gropey freelance politics guy Mark Halperin reports.

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that capital punishment in Alabama can go full NITRO and EXTREMEly screwed convicted KILLER Kenneth Smith can be executed with NITROgen gas for accepting a $1,000 payment from a preacher to murder his wife in 1988, WTVM reports.

If the SUPREME Court doesn’t take up his appeal then Smith’s going to get a full, no holds barred BLAST of NITRO into his lungs on January 25th in front of a LIVE audience at the Alabama Department of Corrections’s legendary Holman Correctional Facility. The NITRO rematch with the DOC’s feared team of EXECUTIONERS follows a 2022 victory for Smith where he SURVIVED lethal injection when they couldn’t find a suitable vein on his arms to inject him with POISON.

Hunter made a mockery of the GOP to their faces today. Strong words and one liners better not be all they give him in return. https://t.co/mjrdITkGFH

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) January 10, 2024