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The New York Times (gift article) reports that for more than a year, the Israeli government knew about the plans executed by Hamas on October 7th with its attack on Israeli soil, but Israeli officials dismissed the reports as aspirational and didn’t think Hamas could carry out the plan, later ignoring some key events that pointed to Hamas’s efforts to carry out the plan.

As with the infamous “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US” presidential daily briefing ignored by George W. Bush, the information collected by Israeli intelligence.  Codenamed “Jericho Wall” by Israeli officials, the 40-page document outlined a number of actions Hamas took on October 7th that led to the death, disappearance or kidnapping of more than 1,200 people.

Although the document circulated among Israeli government and military officials, the prevailing opinion was that Hamas did not have the manpower, coordination or training capability to undertake such a large operation.

Almost certainly involuntarily celibate MAGA Georgia state Senator Colton Moore, famous for his previous failed schemes to save his Orange Allah from prosecution in Atlanta, has a bold new plan to amend the RICO statutes that will probably wreck a shit ton of other cases being pursued – almost certainly including the one against the Antifa libs indicted over that “Cop City” clusterfuck – if he can get Governor Brian Kemp to sign it, which he won’t, Meidas Touch reports.

“I’m working on a piece of legislation called the ‘Stop Political Persecutions Act.’ This thing is going to be foolproof. Several attorneys are working on it… RICO in the state of Georgia does not have a monetary component to it, other states do. If we added a monetary component to Georgia’s RICO well, Trump and everybody’s been indicted on election stuff not monetary stuff,” Moore told Steve Bannon in an interview on Thursday. “That would retroactively drop the charges. Fani Willis would be done. It would only take a simple majority vote. All we need is 29 votes of 33 Republicans and we can get this done and we would set Trump free,” he continued smugly and confidently.

For those of you who became regular readers at any point after November 30, 2021, you would scarcely recognize the National Zero of the before time: 17 months and 5 days of mostly copied and pasted content largely ripped from other sites, much like Political Wire, JoeMyGod, Rick Hasen’s Election Law Blog, and some others. This wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule as Jack – a guy with actual experience in the industry – would mostly compose his own articles while I, who never did despite having “studied” journalism before dropping out of school, did not. I just copied and pasted shit.

A lot of it. The volume was considerably higher when the hardest part of pasting in the first paragraph or two of a CNN or Washington Post article is coming up with a snappy headline to go with it. Which was cool for a while, but after that first year something began gnawing at me inside, a feeling that this site could never truly be its own product if most of the news and analysis – the actual real reason you’re all supposed to be here – was just written by someone else.

Making that switch was a big fucking deal for me, something I seriously doubted I was capable of before something snapped and I just forced myself to do it. The support and encouragement from those of you who were here before and after that switch is utterly humbling.

Jack deserves the most credit for the shift however. He never once challenged me directly, but the guilt of watching him actually put work into this while I hit CMD + C and CMD + V to make most of my “articles.” I sure as shit wasn’t listening to the MAGA trolls who mocked me for the copypasta.

Spokesman for the New York State Office of Court Administration Al Baker on Thursday said in a statement that Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s “wife has sent no social media posts regarding the former president. They are not hers,” the Messenger reports. Which means that for the last few days Trump has been siccing his jihadis on some completely anonymous Twitter user “Dawn Marie”, one whom deleted their account just a few hours ago, per far right influencer Laura Loomer.

“Don’t worry, bitch. I archived your entire account before you could lock it or delete it. I have it all. #Trump2024,” the fucking idiot, who was the first to “identify” the user, wrote Thursday.

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, MD used the Heimlich maneuver to quickly save Iowa colleague Joni Ernst from choking to death during a caucus lunch, Politico’s Burgess Everett reports.

It’s not clear if Paul needed to stand on a chair to get in the proper position or if Ted Cruz was sitting at the same table and laughed “Hahahaha! Look everyone, Joni’s pretending to choke! Okay Joni, that’s not funny anymore. You can stop now,” before Paul pushed the chair up to aid Ernst.

Dr Anthony Fauci did not comment either, but probably would have said “Oh wow, that fucking asshole finally used something from his four years of med school on the job? Color me impressed.”

The Capitol cops beat the hell out of innocent J6 protesters, and the videos are finally coming out

The cops should be charged and the protesters should be freed

This is why the uniparty didn’t want the videos released pic.twitter.com/3LlRsOiZxB

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) November 28, 2023

This tweet by some douchebags on MAGA influencer Stephen Crowder’s B-team is just the usual shock value bullshit, like everyone on the right’s been calling the Capitol rioters “political prisoners” for nearly three years now so let’s take it further by accusing the cops of police brutality for defending themselves blah blah blah. It becomes similar but maybe a little more salient when fat former President Trump himself literally posts a screenshot of and link to it on Truth Social.

That’s an escalation, something that should definitely be brought to the attention of people with the platform to amplify that Trump doesn’t think cops should be allowed to defend themselves, contradicting effectively anything and everything he’s ever said publicly about law enforcement and civil unrest over the last seven years. Like do we even need to cite specific examples here?

Dumbass Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville on Thursday told reporters he’ll stop blocking the promotion of military officers in protest of abortion policy that doesn’t exist. “This started out as, obviously, abortion overreach and those things. Now, since we’ve had all this time, we’ve had different groups across Washington DC and the country that have evaluated all these military appointees. I think that we need to make sure that people that are our generals and admirals should be vetted to some degree, but also understand that we need to get these people promoted, and it’s been a long time for some of them,” Tuberville said adding he’ll only block the “woke” ones.

CNN’s Manu Raju put it flatly that “The reality is that the Senate was likely to change procedures to confirm the nominees if Tuberville didn’t back down.” So this pointless bullshit will finally end.

Senate Judiciary Committee Dems on Thursday finally subpoenaed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s boss Harlan Crow and far right judicial scumbag Leonard Leo to answer questions and provide documents about their undue influence over American law, Dem activist Victor Shi reports.

Florida state Republican Party Chairman Christian Ziegler, husband to Bridget, a co-founder of the extremist Karen group Moms for Liberty, is under criminal investigation after a woman who said she was in “a longstanding consensual three-way sexual relationship” with the Zieglers filed a complaint accusing Christian sexual battery, the Florida Center for Government Accountability reports.

A search warrant was executed on Ziegler’s phone by Sarasota Police Department detectives. No further details about the “longstanding” three-way were available but already lol at these sick assholes for imposing their “Don’t Say Gay” bullshit while being all “non-traditional.”

We don’t hate Punchbowl News. Their guy Jake Sherman is a freaking bloodhound and his reporting has been an invaluable source for National Zero through the great many dramas on Capitol Hill during the last year or so, while their daily morning newsletter more often than not has something useful even if it’s usually buried under dry jargon about appropriations negotiations and what not.

However now for the second time this autumn we’re going to have to call them out for leading with a section about the House GOP’s inept effort to impeach President Joe Biden that reads like it was dictated word-for-word by malevolent razorback Elise Stefanik or some other MAGA asshole, writing that “swing-district Republicans look ready to green-light the Biden probe. And the political reality is that if this investigation is authorized, it may prove impossible to stop the momentum for Biden’s impeachment by the House,” before firing off a bunch of quotes from such members.

It’s only a little ways down that they acknowledge the reality that “there are still a number of Republicans cool on the idea, and impeaching Biden is still no sure bet,” before mentioning that Congressmen Ken Buck and Tom McClintock are still opposed. There are 222 Republicans in the House and they need 218 votes to pass an impeachment inquiry. George Santos will more likely than not be gone within the next 36 hours. Who did the math on the “impossible to stop the momentum”?

Now it’s only fair that if Punchbowl included such caveats that we do ours: Of course the holdouts could end up caving and the inquiry gets authorized. They are Republicans after all. A formal inquiry would certainly create “momentum” in that the expectation from the MAGA base is for them to follow through with it and actually impeach Biden – even though the entire time it will remain glaringly obvious that they’re just trying to find a way to work backward from that predetermined outcome.

A New York State appeals court on Thursday found in favor of Manhattan Superior Court Judge Arthur Engoron and reimposed his gag order on fat former President Trump prohibiting Donald and his lawyers from saying anything about Engoron’s clerk or any other member of the staff.

For a guy who bitches constantly about Disney and other major Hollywood studios for being “woke” and what not, Jim Jordan sure seems intent on mimicking a different part of their model, one subject to wider, apolitical criticism of their product: their reliance on sequels, prequels, spinoffs, reboots, remakes, adaptations of existing properties, etc at the expense of resources that could be devoted to developing fresh new material and exciting content that stands on its own.

Actually not sure if that’s a fair comparison. The worst Spider-man movie still has Spider-man in it, people still want to watch it. This hearing is fucking Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger rehashing the same Twitter Files circlejerk they did nine months ago. Nobody in their right mind cared about this back then and what the fuck else has changed other than an IRS agent supposedly showing up at Taibbi’s home because “muh weaponization Biden Deep State revenge” and blah blah blah?

Of course we’re running it for our readers to watch these assholes embarrass themselves, but National Zero is not the intended audience. That audience, the fanboys for whom this is being staged and would take it seriously… Are they excited for Jim Jordan’s big comeback hearing?

A Greenwich, Connecticut woman has sued the national salad chain Chopt over an order staff at the Mount Kisco, New York location got wrong back in April, the Associated Press reports.

She specifically ordered an arugula salad with no meat and the overworked and underpaid staff screwed up and put a piece of the manager’s finger in it. So what. Stuff happens sometimes, especially at a place called “Chopt.” Doesn’t mean this Karen has to make a big lawsuit out of it.

In a very frank admission of the incentive structure for Republicans in deep red districts, MAGA Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett on Wednesday told Business Insider a vote to expel George Santos would be a political winner with his constituents because “people don’t like the fact he’s gay.”

Burchett did not say definitively which way he’ll actually vote, only saying he’s a “libertarian” when it comes to sexuality. “Politically, it’d be the greatest vote in the world for me back home,” he said about the lying piece of shit Long Islander’s status. “Everybody’s saying ‘kick him out!’ I mean, people don’t like the fact he’s gay,” said Burchett. “And then you go down the list, then you get to all the criminal stuff. But he hasn’t been convicted, and I can’t get past that,” said Burchett, apparently hinting at something resembling principle may override the homophobia from his constituents.

Lying piece of shit Long Island Congressman George Santos will deliver his hotly-anticipated press conference from the steps of the Capitol on Thursday morning as he faces a reportedly certain expulsion from the House in a vote likely coming to the floor on Friday. Santos’s lack of credibility on really anything of substance or otherwise does not mean his questionable accusations of gross personal misbehavior and professional misconduct on the part of his GOP colleagues will not be entertaining. Otherwise we wouldn’t bother with running this shitshow on our website.

Two gunmen reportedly associated with Hamas opened fire on a bus stop in Jerusalem on Thursday killing at least two Israelis before getting shot dead by IDF soldiers themselves, and a third Israeli civilian was killed during the crossfire, Fox News reports citing an IDF spokesperson.

“The initial investigation indicates that the terrorists arrived to the scene by car in the morning, armed with an M-16 rifle and a handgun,” a Jerusalem Police spokesperson said. “At a certain point, the terrorists began shooting at civilians before subsequently being killed at the scene. A police search of the terrorists’ car revealed ammunition and weaponry.”

Can’t get over this guy’s inability to get over the fact that Joe Biden never charged his brother interest on personal loans. It’s understandable too, considering that Smith and his buddy James Comer have actually pretty much established a record showing that James Biden did use money he scammed from a failing health insurance company and some Chinese energy concern to make loan repayments to his brother and any interest Joe could have charged would thus have been a personal benefit from the “Biden Crime Family” hustles. Like we get why Smith is so frustrated here (and why he’s frustrated in other ways). If only Joe Biden were the kind of asshole who would charge a family member interest Smith would have the pretext for impeachment they so desperately pine for.

Cowardly former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy claimed to two people that, following his ouster at the hands of eight mostly far-right rebels early last month, he told fat former President Trump “fuck you” in a phone conversation for not having had McCarthy’s back and intervening to get the anti-McCarthy members to stop the steal of the Speakership, the Washington Post reports.

In what lines up with previous reporting from the Post and other sources both before and after the ouster, as well as public claims by palace coup leader Matt Gaetz hinting that he had Orange God Emperor’s support for the removal before Gaetz had introduced the motion to vacate, sources told the Post that McCarthy said Trump had “lambasted” his feckless underling for failing to endorse his 2024 presidential campaign and – hilariously, but not unexpectedly – not moving forward with evil House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and ornery now-Senator Markwayne Mullin’s plan to “expunge” the fat former president’s two impeachments, leading to the “fuck you” from McCarthy.

What isn’t in the Post’s report is any mention of Trump disagreeing with McCarthy on actual policy or legislation, despite the Orange Slob having claimed after the fact in an interview with propagandist John Solomon last month that Kev had it coming after he “played right into the Democrats’ hands” by ignoring Trump’s commands to shut down the government and reaching a spending deal. That was all bullshit retconning as you don’t see anything about Donald – or Matt Gaetz and his pals for that matter – exerting any similar pressure on McCarthy’s far-right successor Mike Johnson.

Qatari officials on Thursday announced the ceasefire between terrorist group Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces was extended by a day just minutes before it was to expire, the AP reports.