Democrats went 3-for-3 in a set of special state House elections in Pennsylvania Tuesday, securing a 102-101 majority in the chamber, the first after 12 years of GOP control, the AP reports.

An exemplar of right wing governance and anti-woke policies, the Russian Federation, is considering increasing taxes on its citizens, lighting their hard-earned rubles on fire to fund the ongoing war in Ukraine while inflation skyrockets and grocery shelves are empty, the Moscow Times reports.

The exact details of the tax hike are still being worked out, however there is talk of killing jobs by forcing large companies to make a one-time “voluntary contribution” to the budget to support spending, according to anti-socialist crusader Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov.

A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday denied disgraced former President Trump’s attempts to delay facing trial in the defamation and rape lawsuit brought by writer EJ Carroll over a sexual assault from 1995 and set the start date for April 25th, the New York Daily News reports.

It’s not clear yet whether the original 2019 federal defamation case brought by Carroll will definitely be combined with the New York state rape case she filed in November 2022 immediately after a new law came into effect temporarily opening a window for victims to pursue civil complaints otherwise expired by the statute of limitations. Trump did himself no favors in an October deposition, as his claims that Carroll wasn’t his “type” were blown up when he twice said a circa-1995 photo of Carroll was his then-wife Marla Maples before being corrected by his lawyer.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to Britain on Wednesday, only his second trip outside of Ukraine since the war began last February, the BBC reports.

Zelensky was met on the tarmac by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and is expected later in the day to make an address to British Parliament and to have an audience with King Charles III as well.

The official death toll from a series of massive earthquakes in southern Turkey that also shook neighboring Syria on Monday rose past 11,000 on Wednesday, becoming the deadliest earthquake worldwide in since the 2011 Japan quake and tsunami, the Associated Press reports.

Los Angeles Lakers superstar Lebron James became the all-time NBA scoring champ with a 21-foot jump shot from the foul line, topping previous record-holder Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s 38,387 points, ESPN reports.

In her official Republican response to President Joe Biden’s fiery and authentic State of the Union address, first-year Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee-Sanders repeated the GOP talking point that baselessly claims everything Biden says is a lie and everything is horrible because of CRT and drag queen story times in our schools.

In what can only be called a “very, very bad” response, Huckabee-Sanders detailed her personal fight with cancer, announced that she would debut a new education program tomorrow (that of course will bar lessons about race, gender, sex, and any other religion than the one she approves), and then went on an exceptionally long-winded and ultimately pointless story about a Christmas trip she took with Donald Trump to visit troops in Afghanistan when she was White House press secretary because… yay, her?

Lying shitbag Congressman George Santos on Tuesday spoke with Semafor’s Kadia Goba about a brief exchange he had with Senator Mitt Romney in the House chamber prior to Biden’s State of The Union speech, claiming that the Utah Republican (correctly) told Santos “You don’t belong here.”

“Go tell that to the 142,000 that voted for me,” Santos allegedly said, to which Romney allegedly then replied “You’re an ass.” Santos then allegedly told Romney he’s “a much bigger asshole.” Video seems to indicate Romney said something closer to “You’re embarrassing,” so it’s certainly possible Santos misheard him as saying “ass.” Either way it’s clear Mitt doesn’t think highly of George.

From the outset, Joe Biden’s second State of the Union address was a unique one, with congratulations to Speaker of the House pro tem Kevin McCarthy as a sign of bipartisanship but peppered with interchanges between the President and the Republican side.

With McCarthy alternatively attempting to look actively bored to shushing disrespectful liars from his caucus, Biden controlled the stage, turning heckles from Republicans into a public pledge that they will not threaten Social Security and Medicare as the debt ceiling crisis approaches.  Biden deftly used policies promoted by Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott during the midterm elections to turn Republicans against themselves.

Biden pushed for an assault weapons ban–after which cameras caught Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (Q-Colo.) looking forlorn in the audience–and promised to veto any abortion ban that may slip through Congress. 

Folks, let’s come together and finish the job of providing National Zero readers with a review of President Joe Biden’s State of The Union speech. We’re making progress here, so let’s finish the job by finding a pathway to writing it. Folks this was a good speech, you can recognize it in the amount of applause which was 27 percent higher than last year. 27 percent. But we’re not done yet.

Look folks, that 27 percent number we made up. That’s unacceptable. Unacceptable. My friends on the other side of the aisle are criticizing that number, but let’s come together and find a number that works for all Americans. Working families. Look, we have an obligation to the men and women who read National Zero to provide them with an estimate of how much better it was this year.

Look folks, it was a good speech. The president used the same turns of phrase over and over and over again, but let’s finish the job and agree that it was substantively a solid speech highlighting Biden’s accomplishments in plain language, easy enough for Americans to understand. Let me be clear, it will be so much more positive and palatable than Sarah Huckabee’s shitty rebuttal.

With a theme of “we can finish the job,” President Joe Biden will recap the successes of his first two years in office including record job creation, pandemic recovery and infrastructure investment in his second State of the Union address, essentially a CV for Biden’s reelection campaign.  Biden will also preview his agenda for the last two years of his first term, putting before the American people his goals versus those of Republican Speaker pro tem Kevin McCarthy.  Republican Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckleberry Huckabee will follow with the opposition response which will undoubtedly invoke Hunter Biden, balloons, the wall and numerous false claims about how Republicans are bringing accountability to Washington.

Former MAGA Congressman and failed 2022 Republican New York State gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin is looking at failing to unseat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in 2024 – or losing even worse to AOC if she knocks off Gillibrand in the Dem primary, the Albany Times-Union reports.

His monologues are typically disinformative, but as the Fox lead-in to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Tucker Carlson decided to erase Trump and/or the pandemic from a series of before/after comparisons, and of course, blame Biden for all of it, saying of the speech, “We don’t expect a single honest word.  We hope we’re surprised, but we don’t expect to be.”  We’re not surprised by Tucker’s distortion of reality to manipulate his audience.  It’s what he does.  He does that. He lies.  Some examples:

“Since his predecessor, Donald Trump, gave his final address to a joint session of Congress”–This is how Carlson prefaces the first set of comparisons between how Trump left office and the present condition.  For those who don’t see Carlson’s deception:  Trump’s last SOTU was February 4, 2020, before he mismanaged the federal response to the pandemic and set the US economy reeling.  So Tucker just un-histories that whole thing.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un appeared publicly on Monday following a 35 day absence that had fueled speculation that the obese, chain-smoking millennial with the health of a 75 year-old diabetic from The Villages, Florida, had finally expired and gone to commie hell, Fox News reports.

As usual Kim ordered his military to increase drills and its state of readiness for conflict with capitalist enemies such as South Korea, Japan, and the United States for whatever fucking reason it’s been so long nobody even remembers. State media reported Kim is “constantly expanding and intensifying the operation and combat drills” and “more strictly perfecting the preparedness for war.”

The charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel is leaving Los Angeles to become the new music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic. https://t.co/2eTSZdvaKd

— NPR (@NPR) February 7, 2023

You will not be surprised to learn that former FBI Special Agent Nicole Parker, testifying Thursday at Jim Jordan’s first “Weaponization” committee hearing alongside “Hindu” New Age death cult fascist Tulsi Gabbard and Republican Senators RonAnon and Old Man Grassley, is a regular Fox News contributor who hates her former employer for being too “woke,” Talking Points Memo reports.

TPM editor Josh Marshall clips from an op-ed Parker wrote for FoxNews.com in which she decries an episode following George Floyd’s murder in 2020 when a group of FBI agents in tactical gear kneeled in front of BLM protestors to deescalate the situation. “On top of that, there was no reprimand for any of the agents who knelt that day. In fact, many ended up getting highly sought-after promotions and were offered $100 gift cards by the FBI Agents Association,” Parker wailed.

Parker has appeared on Fox News TV a few times, but judging by her resume (posted to the Miami field office) and that her op-ed mentions nothing material to the actual shit Jordan’s subcommittee is supposed to be investigating – as in the FBI being “weaponized” to take down Trump and his minions – we’re now even more excited for this “blockbuster” hearing on Thursday.

It’s just an innocent balloon… #SOTU pic.twitter.com/Q6saJYqcp8

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) February 7, 2023

It’s not clear if the white nationalist psychopath will actually try to take her balloon into the House chamber during the State of The Union speech or if she’ll be allowed to do so.

Statutory rapey Congressman Matt Gaetz has been added to the roster of his buddy Jim Jordan’s cool “Weaponization” select subcommittee, subbing in for bald MAGA Congressman Chip Roy ahead of the subcommittee’s first hearing on Thursday, CNN’s Anne Grayer reports while adding that Gaetz has been (and maybe still is) under federal criminal investigation for sex trafficking a minor.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which includes no Republican members even though five are Black, will wear a button emblazoned with “1870” on it, commemorating the murder 153 years ago of Henry Truman, a Black man shot and killed by a Philadelphia Police officer in 1870, to signify the ongoing unequal justice in the US legal system.

The paragon of chaste and noble behavior around women Donald Trump shamed Ron DeSantis for his past wickedness with high school girls on Tuesday. Trump also went after Ron for voting against his border wall while in Congress, and that DeSantis said he was “glad” the Capitol rioters were arrested on January 6th. But the high school girls one sort of sticks out more than the others.