Flashing a lot of Dark Brandon energy, Joe Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to a dozen elections officials from around the country for resisting efforts to overturn the official results of the 2020 election on Friday, the second anniversary of the Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, the New York Times reports.

Among one of the highest honors a President can bestow on a civilian, the medal honors a person who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”

Atlanta election official Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, will be honored, as will Arizona Republican Rusty Bowers and Pennsylvania city commissioner Al Schmidt.  Schmidt is a Philadelphia official who insisted every absentee ballot be counted, and Bowers testified before the January 6th Committee about Trump’s pressure to overturn the Arizona election results legislatively.

And yes, if Lauren Boebert or Matt Gaetz demands McCarthy perform his James Brown tribute act on the floor of the House to get their support for Speaker, you know McCarthy’s down for that.

A man who worked for Hershel Walker’s comic-tragedy of a Senatorial campaign has accused holier-than-though conservative activist Matt Schlapp of groping him, rubbing his hand in the man’s crotch, against the man’s will, The Daily Beast reports.

The head of the influential Conservative Political Action Conference and the husband of conservative political commentator Mercedes Schlapp, Schlapp traveled to Georgia to assist with Walker’s general election campaign in October, when the unnamed man says Schlapp grabbed his crotch in a car after the two went to two bars together.

The campaign staffer, well-aware of Schlapp’s influence in Republican politics, promised to discuss the staffer’s future in politics, establishing a power-dynamic with the individual before assaulting him.  Schlapp’s attorney told The Daily Beast that Schlapp denies the accusation and even the circulation of the story does not make Schlapp happy.

President Joe Biden is authorizing the shipment of Bradley Fighting Vehicles, armored troop transportation tracked vehicles, to Ukraine to help defend the country against Russian invaders, Politico reports.

Next on the agenda for Biden:  deciding whether to ship tanks to the besieged nation.  Biden is reportedly considering a Ukrainian request for modern Western heavy armor.  Shipping the Bradleys–which may be armed with chain guns, machine guns and TOW anti-tank missiles–and other allied armored vehicles to Ukraine advances the firepower of weapon systems Western nations are supplying to the defenders.  The Bradley will join fleets of German Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicle and French AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles, with a 105-mm gun, on the Ukrainian lines.

Depending on the performance of the Ukrainians with these arms, Biden will consider sending American tanks to the Ukrainians, who are now using Soviet-era tanks.  The M-1 Abrams tank would be a significant upgrade to their current tanks, the newest of which were designed with 1990’s technology.

Audiences have seen a number of examples lately where television hosts and journalists have strongly confronted interviewees.  Tulsi Gabbard took on George Santos earlier in the week, and last night, Tantrum Caucus member Lauren Boebert (Q-Colo.) was grilled by both MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and Fox’s in-house Trump advisor Sean Hannity.

This is something different.  When Fox host–and one of the few somewhat legit journalists on the network–Bret Baier bought up a talking point making its way in right-wing echo chambers:  the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg violated federal law by taking his husband “on a military aircraft to a sporting event in the Netherlands.”  What Baier doesn’t mention is what Secretary Pete jumps on:  that the trip was a Presidential delegation; that the principal’s spouse is an official emissary in the delegation; and that no one questioned when the Secretary of the Army and his wife led the delegation last year, or when Melania Trump did it before that.

Baier literally cowers under the weight of Buttigieg’s counterattack, seemingly raising a hand to protect himself from the barbs coming from the Secretary.  Good for Buttigieg for going on Fox and for standing up to the bigots, and shame on Baier and Fox.  That behavior needs an on-air apology.

Speaking with Megyn Kelly’s vocal doppelgänger, a filmmaker who had booked an event in Florida to discuss his new, ahem, documentary about the real causes of the “event” on January 6, 2021, laments ticket seller Eventbrite blocking the event from its platform.  “I was really happy,” the right-wing Woody Harrelson imitator babbles.  “It means you’re over the target.  I mean, they’re so afraid a Christian filmmaker comin’ down to speak to some really cool Jewish chicks, to talk about the truth what happened on January 6th, that a big ol’ company like Eventbrite has to shut us down.”

The partner of slain US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick on Thursday filed a wrongful death lawsuit against fat former President Trump and the two MAGA insurrectionists charged with assaulting Sicknick during the January 6th, 2021 Capitol riot, CBS News’s Scott MacFarlane reports.

Sandra Garza seeks damages of $10 million against fat Donald and Capitol rioters Julian Khater and George Tanios for their role in Sicknick’s death the following day after being attacked by Khater and Tainos during the insurrection. Although a coroner was unable to determine whether the injuries suffered by Sicknick during the attack led to his death, the USCP still classified it as having occurred “in the line of duty,” because it sure would’ve been a hell of a coincidence.

Who says praying doesn’t make a difference https://t.co/1lfiOuVRYw

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 5, 2023

Josh Hawley, the insurrectionist-encouraging Republican Senator for Missouri famous for his fleetfooted-fleeing from said insurrectionists, fails to recognize the heroic efforts of the team trainers and medical staffs from the two NFL teams that were playing, the first responders on the scene, and the dozens of medical professionals at the Cincinnati hospital who treated Damar Hamlin, not to mention the generations of researchers, doctors, nurses and scientists who researched the condition that dropped the NFL defensive back to the turf Monday night.  But sure, the chant to the Flying Spaghetti Monster from the Pastafarian in Arizona was a big help.

That’s right, traditional Chinese choreography fans! Shen-Fuckin-Yun is back again for another massive marketing campaign that seeks to cover every square inch of the United States with images of its dancers celebrating 5,000 years of Chinese culture reborn. Experience China before Communism, brought to you by a company banned in the People’s Republic and yet somehow every year is able to spend probably hundreds of millions of dollars to advertise the shit out of something with extremely limited appeal to a mass market more comfortable with Marvel superhero movies.

None will be left unaware.

We’ll skip getting into the weeds about how it’s all a bunch of cult propaganda. Jia Tolentino already wrote that piece at the New Yorker. It still doesn’t explain how or why the fuck they put up dozens of posters in a neighborhood that is 0.2% Asian, let alone booked the Lincoln Center for six weeks straight. That’s not how money laundering is supposed to work. If you have $20 million in drug money you spend $1.5 million of it producing some shitty movie that goes straight to the dregs of Amazon Prime video. Marketing it as ubiquitously as Shen-Yun is could attract attention. So it’s probably not money laundering. Probably. It’s still freaking shady as hell, whatever it is.

With President Biden scheduled to visit the country next week, Mexico on Thursday captured Ovidio Guzmán, one son of the notorious drug dealer known as El Chapo and himself a major fentanyl trafficker, the Washington Post reports.

Guzmán’s arrest was a point of pressure Biden had been putting on the administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, seeing it as a sign of Mexico’s commitment to stem the flow of drugs coming into the United States from Mexico. Ovidio Guzmán’s father, Joaquín Guzmán, was captured by Mexican forces in 2014 with assistance from Barack Obama’s administration.

More than 900 army soldiers, national guard troops and state police officers captured Ovidio Guzmán in the western Mexican town of Culiacan, a place where army forces had previously detained him three years ago but released him and abandoned the town after it learned cartel forces were descending on the location to free their leader.

Damar Hamlin asked medical personnel if his team, the Buffalo Bills, won the Monday game against the Bengals during which the player collapsed on the field in apparent heart failure, CBS reports.

“We would like to share there has been substantial improvement  over the last 24 hours,” said Dr. Timothy Pritts of University of Cincinnati Medical Center during a midday briefing. “We have significant concern about him after the event that happened on the field. He is making substantial progress. As of this morning, he is beginning to awaken.”  Pritts said that Hamlin has been able to write on a board to communicate with family and his medical team, raising hope that his “neurological function is intact.”  Pritts noted that Hamlin asking about the outcome of the game leads him to think Hamlin has maintained an encouraging level of awareness of what was going on when he went down. The game was suspended by the league after Hamlin’s injury and will not be resumed. The league is currently working on figuring out what to do with regard to standings.

Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith has obtained new evidence from party and public officials in the 2020 swing states that the House January 6th Select Committee did not manage to get and also may make his first charging decisions within the next few weeks, Bloomberg reports.

Follow us live as Kevin McCarthy’s utter humiliation continues on Thursday.

Much has been made of how stupid and weak disgraced former President Trump was made to look this week after seven failed attempts to secure the Speakership for Kevin McCarthy (to say nothing of McCarthy himself, lol). Just read some of the comments from this Wednesday Breitbart thread on Donald’s re-endorsement. “I don’t care what Trump thinks anymore,” and “The day in which Donald Trump alienates enough of his base to guarantee a loss in 2024. Read the room dude,” and so on.

But Trump’s taken heat from his fanboys before. Even after pushing the “lethal” COVID vaccine he’s still a living God to an intractable plurality of the Republican base. He’s not going away.

Buffalo Bills defense back Damar Hamlin has shown “remarkable improvement” overnight after suffering cardiac arrest on the football field Monday night, the team said in a statement per ESPN.

“Per the physicians caring for Damar Hamlin at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Damar has shown remarkable improvement over the past 24 hours. While still critically ill, he has demonstrated that he appears to be neurologically intact. His lungs continue to heal and he is making steady progress,” the team said. “We are grateful for the love and support we have received.”

While the doctors treating the 24-year-old Hamlin have not definitively stated what caused the cardiac arrest which occurred after Hamlin sustained a blow to the chest while tackling an opposing player, doctors and other medical professionals who have watched the video of the player’s collapse speculate he may have suffered a condition called “commotio cordis,” in which the heart goes into fibrillation after sustaining an impact.

Impotent Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy has ceded more power and influence to a cadre of nihilists in his craven effort to be named Speaker of the House, ABC News reports, after being nationally humiliated with six failing floor votes to put him in charge of the chamber.

McCarthy has reportedly already allowed a measure to be inserted into House rules that would allow a floor vote to remove him from Speaker on a whim if a minimal number of the Tantrum Caucus decide he needs to be removed. In addition, McCarthy has promised to assign a number of Freedom Caucus members to the influential Rules Committee. McCarthy has also vowed to bring some legislation to the floor that does not have enough support to pass but allows the performance artists and social media trolls of the Tantrum Caucus to get more upvotes from their sheeple; one of the bills will be for a three-term limit for the House, which the GOP caucus opposes.

McCarthy’s in a dire race to secure 16 more votes from the nihilists to get to 218 votes to become Speaker.  McCarthy has lost six floor votes to Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, who garnered 212 votes to McCarthy’s 201, with 20 voting for a protest candidate and one Republican voting “present.”

Democratic Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow announced she will not seek reelection when her term expires in 2025, opening up a seat in a state that has been traditionally Democratic but has become more of a battleground in federal elections, CNN reports.

“Inspired by a new generation of leaders, I have decided to pass the torch in the U.S. Senate. I am announcing today that I will not seek re-election and will leave the U.S. Senate at the end of my term on January 3, 2025,” Stabenow, 72, said in a statement.

Democrats have 20 Senate seats up for reelection in 2024 versus just 11 for Republicans.  Many of the Democratic seats in the cycle are in traditional “Red” or “Purple” states:  Jon Tester in Montana, Joe Manchin in West Virginia and Sherrod Brown in Ohio are among those up for reelection.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine in commemoration of January 6th, which not only marks the second anniversary of the failed attempt to subvert the Constitution of the United States which he supported and coincidentally is a key holiday in the Russian Orthodox Church’s Christmas celebration, Reuters reports.

January 6th, the traditional day of the Epiphany when legend has it the Magi (the Three Wise Men in Western lore) visit the Christ Child in a manger in Bethlehem after the family of migrants was denied housing by the establishment.

“Taking into account the appeal of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, I instruct the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation to introduce a ceasefire regime along the entire line of contact of the parties in Ukraine from 12.00 on January 6, 2023 to 24.00 on January 7, 2023,” Putin said in the order.

Thank you for all the kind, supportive, and predictable jokes about Elon Musk buying National Zero. It really means a lot to us when our readers reference current events in mocking our misfortune. It was almost like the spirit of National Zero lived on for the few hours while it was temporarily dead.

Without getting too much into the weeds and speculating on what happened, we know it was some conflict within WordPress, the platform on which this site is built, likely between two plugins. The Ukrainian-based support staff with our host, Namecheap, were very helpful and responsive in helping to get the issue resolved, but we also went ahead and just fucked around with uninstalling and updating plugins until it was unfucked too. So it’s all good for now, thank you for sticking with us and we look forward to the next unexpected shitshow taking our site down.

Kevin McCarthy should be Speaker

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 5, 2023