We are coming, ya'll!!! Keep your eyes peeled for registration information soon. #HawlinHawley pic.twitter.com/Oc3TclTMRb

— Missouri Democrats (@MoDemParty) July 22, 2022

Referencing of course Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley’s now-infamous cowardly January 6th, 2021 dash to safety from the MAGA terrorist horde he had encouraged just hours earlier.

The brilliant legal minds on Steve Bannon’s defense team, given effectively jack shit to work with in their closing argument Friday, raised the issue of whether or not House January 6th Select Committee chairman Bennie Thompson really signed the subpoena for Bannon, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, saying the lawyers noticed the signature is a little sloppy compared to other examples of Thompson’s mark and thus may not be “legit.” Which is a valid question to ask when you forget that Bennie Thompson is a grown man who has served in Congress for almost 30 years and is the leader of the highest profile Congressional investigation in decades and probably doesn’t want to risk prosecution for himself or any staff members for forging a legal instrument.

The judge told Bannon’s team to cut the bullshit. They then brought up that the assistant DC federal prosecutor Molly Gaston is in a book club with one of the prosecution’s witnesses, a House January 6th Select Committee deputy staff director and general counsel Kristin Amerling. “Make no mistake, I’m not against book clubs,” said Bannon defense lawyer Evan Corcoran. The judge sustained no less than four prosecution objections during the defense’s closing arguments.

UPDATE 7/22/2022 11:39 AM EDT: Jurors begin deliberating, per Kyle Cheney.

The DC Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel has filed ethics charges against Trump DOJ coup plotter former Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, Reuters’ Sarah Lynch reports. The Bar says Clark made false statements about Georgia’s 2020 results in the “Just say the election was corrupt” letter he tried to get the then-Acting AG Jeff Rosen and Acting Assistant AG Richard Donoghue to send to the state, charging him with attempting to engage in dishonesty by making false statements and by engaging in conduct that would “seriously interfere with the administration of justice.” Note that this is strictly a legal profession context here and the “charges” aren’t over an official criminal matter (though Clark definitely could be facing that problem separately).

Author and veteran Wes Moore has edged out former DNC chairman Tom Perez for the Maryland Dem gubernatorial primary, NBC News projects after a days-long count marred by tabulation data missing in Baltimore. Moore is the heavy favorite against Trump-backed QAnon freak Dan Cocks.

Non-Correction: The current version of this article misspelled Maryland GOP gov candidate Dan Cox’s last name as “Cocks.” National Zero does not regret the error and will not be correcting it.

Former DC Metro cop Mike Fanone, now a CNN law enforcement analyst after retiring due to injuries suffer in the January 6th insurrection, was walking out of the Congressional office building Thursday night after the committee hearing had concluded when a group of MAGA hecklers began harassing him. Calmly and without a word, Fanone turned around and began walking back toward the building’s entrance, still followed by the right wing scumbags. An older lib counter protestor with a wide banner stepped in to block them, causing a particularly chubby man boy in the pro-Trump crowd to – probably purposely – tumble over a low concrete wall, squealing in agony.

UPDATE 7/22/2022 10:25 AM EDT: Yes, we already published this story and video late Thursday night, was just informed of my mistake. No reason not to re-up it, it’s entertaining enough.

Just before closing arguments were set to begin Friday, alcoholic Nazi degenerate Steve Bannon’s defense team filed a motion on whether the House January 6th Select Committee’s “inflammatory” inclusion of the October 31st, 2020 audio clip of Bannon, who told his pals fat former President Trump planned to declare victory on election night no matter what happened, in the Thursday night prime time hearing may have tainted the jury, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports.

“Now that we know that it included a highly inflammatory segment featuring Mr. Bannon, the question arises as to whether jurors should be questioned about any exposure to the piece. An associated concern is whether a juror might be reticent to acknowledge having seen the broadcast or having heard about or discussed it if she or he believes she or he might have run afoul of a rule and be in trouble with the Court. The Defendant respectfully requests, subject to the Court’s experienced view on how best to address the matter, that there should be some inquiry, while assuring the jurors of the importance of candor and that they will not suffer negative consequences if they acknowledge exposure to the broadcast or its subject,” wrote Bannon’s lawyers.

Marathon, Florida man David Andrew Herberholz was arrested Thursday on a charge of petit theft, one day after he informed a road crew he would commit petit theft of a “No Parking” sign on the street in front of his home if they installed it, Local10.com reports. It’s unclear if a witness saw Herberholz removing the sign – valued at approximately $120 – or if Monroe County Sheriff’s deputies otherwise already knew where to go when they saw it was missing, but either way they knocked on Herberholz’s door after which he immediately admitted to the theft.

The sign was promptly retrieved from the nearby canal where the Professor Moriarty-level criminal mastermind (by Florida’s standards) had tossed it into. For those who are wondering, Herberholz is a registered Dem, showing that not all Florida Men are Republican. Just almost all of them.

Trump loyalists are already building a “shadow administration” ready to gut the federal government’s non-partisan workforce and replace them with incompetent and amoral scumbags whose allegiance is to the Orange God Emperor and not America, Axios reports in a long piece.

A sergeant with the Sunrise, Florida police department was charged with assault for an incident last November where he put his hands around the neck of a female officer who was trying to stop the sergeant from verbally abusing a handcuffed suspect, WPLG ABC 10 in Miami reports.

Christopher Pullease was caught on bodycam footage lunging at an unnamed female officer, putting his hands around her neck, after she pulled Pullease away from a police car where a suspect who had harassed customers at a convenience store and then resisted arrest was confined.

Pullease reportedly was holding a can of mace and berating the suspect when the female officer attempted unsuccessfully to de-escalate the situation.  With Pullease getting more aggressive, the officer grabbed him by the back of his belt and pulled him away, which angered Pullease and he attacked her. 

As former Metropolitan DC police officer Michael Fanone left Thursday’s House Select Committee hearing, a small group of MAGAts harassed him with various conspiratorial questions, prompting Fanone to head back into the Capitol.  As one of the stalkers followed him, a good guy with a banner–one that reads “Coup Coup” with Trump’s face (get it… “cuckoo”?)–steps in front of the stalker, who makes a pratfall and screams as though he was having a toenail forcibly removed… or maybe he has a paper cut, given his apparent pain threshold.

Republican Mesa County, Colorado clerk Tina Peters, facing trial on a 13 count indictment over her tampering with Dominion Voting Systems election equipment is now once again a wanted fugitive after she violated the terms of her pretrial release by contacting the current election administrator for Mesa, leading a the judge to issue a warrant for her arrest bond Thursday, Denver 7 reports.

The new warrant comes less than a week after Peters was accused of violating pretrial release terms by traveling to Nevada to speak at some QAnon fan convention, a warrant that was later quashed by the judge after Peters’ attorney explained there was a misunderstanding and admitted he had not properly communicated the terms to his client. The judge agreed. It’s certain if Peters’ bond will be revoked after she’s apprehended. It should be, but who the hell knows at this point.

Some libtard rushed the stage during a campaign event and tried to kill Republican New York Congressman and Governor candidate Lee Zeldin on Thursday, Fox News reports. These are the things and events that happen when a punk like Zeldin tries to overturn a sacred Biden landslide election victory so unceremoniously, viciously attempting to strip it away from great patriots like Joe Biden who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Remember this day forever! And yeah we condemn violence and all that shit. Violence doesn’t solve every problem.

The New York Department of Health has confirmed that a Rockland County man has contracted polio, the first verified case of the disease in the United States in nearly a decade, CNN reports.

The variant of the virus, revertant polio Sabin type 2 virus, is consistent with the virus used in the oral vaccine for polio, which is used in many poorer countries and which contains a weakened version of the virus.  That vaccine triggers the patient’s system to help improve immunity.

The New York man was not vaccinated for polio, making him susceptible to the virus.  It is unknown if the patient was not vaccinated by choice, if he had a compromising condition that prevented him from getting the vaccine, or if he was from an area of the world that didn’t require polio vaccinations.

Thursday’s prime time House January 6th hearing, the eighth in the series and the finale for the time being is the big one: Trump’s 187 minutes watching the Capitol riot from the White House. Order pizza, microwave your Pop Secret, silence your phone, empty your and the dog’s bladder, and crank up the volume. This is what following politics is all about: Big nights like this.

In his continuing expert trolling of his opponent, Democratic Pennsylvania Senate nominee Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has started a petition signature drive to have Republican Pennsylvania Senate nominee Mehmet Oz into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

In a tweet interspersed with clips of Oz praising his New Jersey heritage, Fetterman said, “We all know that Dr. Oz is so proud of being ‘Jersey Strong.’  He’s a huge New Jersey celebrity who has lived there for three decades.  Clearly, he loves his home state, he’s even registered to vote there. To honor Dr. Oz’s deep New Jersey roots, we thought it would be a great idea to start a petition and help him reach his dream to be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.  Help us recognize his Jersey pride by signing our petition today.”

Fetterman has ceaselessly promoted Oz’s New Jersey residency, including noting that Oz filmed a commercial for his Pennsylvania Senate campaign from his mansion in northern New Jersey.

Negotiators for Russia and Ukraine have reached an agreement to allow exports of grain and other food products to be shipped out of the ports along the Black Sea in an effort to stabilize world food markets, Reuters reports.

The Turkish government acted as a mediator to get the deal done, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that shipments could start as early as the end of the day Friday, local time.  The Russians have agreed to lift its blockade, but will stop any ships it suspects of bringing aid into the ports that may help the Ukrainian defense.

The agreement also allows Russia to export grain and other goods out of the Ukrainian ports, which will not only improve global food supplies, but also help to fund a faltering Russian government that has been crippled by international sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine.

The errant drone of an unknown operator shut down air traffic going in and out of Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport for 45 minutes Thursday afternoon starting around 12:45 p.m., Politico reports.

The drone was spotted flying above one of the runways, prompting the FAA to announce a suspension of operations that was initially expected to last two hours.  Four incoming flights were rerouted to other airports, and 70 other flights had their landings delays.  Five outbound flights were canceled, and another 74 had their takeoffs delayed.

The FAA did not state how the threat from the drone was neutralized or if it simply flew away, nor did they say they had any leads on who owned and/or controlled the craft.  Around the world, airports are dealing with a rising tide of drones invading their airspace.  Authorities are attempting to devise methods such as signal blockers that would prevent drones from flying over protected ground.

Ultra charismatic and affable former First Lady Melania Trump told Fox News in a Thursday interview that during the Capitol insurrection she was unaware of the violence as she was busy having her carpet photographed – and yeah the joke is just way too fucking easy but go ahead and make it in the comments below, who are we to say you can’t write it here. Have at it.

“On January 6, 2021, I was fulfilling one of my duties as First Lady of the United States of America, and accordingly, I was unaware of what was simultaneously transpiring at the U.S. Capitol Building,” Melania said, adding “As with all First Ladies who preceded me, it was my obligation to record the contents of the White House’s historic rooms, including taking archival photographs of all the renovations,” which, per the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, was mostly pics of a new carpet.

As for her former Chief of Staff, Steph Grisham, who last month tweeted a screenshot of a text exchange in which Melania simply replied “No” when asked if she would condemn the violence (Grisham resigned later that day), the former illegal immigrant turned First Lady said “Ms. Grisham was not in the White House on January 6, and her behavior in her role as Chief of Staff ultimately amounts to dereliction of duty,” adding, “traditionally, the First Lady’s Chief of Staff provides detailed briefings surrounding our Nation’s important issues,” which Grisham in fact did that day.

For the fifth time since the Supreme Court struck down a person’s right to an abortion, Lousiana courts have reversed a previous court decision on the state’s law banning the medical treatment, this time allowing abortion services to continue, the Associated Press reports.

Citing the “vagueness” of the law, state district judge Donald Johnson in Baton Rouge issued an injunction preventing the state law from taking effect that was triggered by the Supreme Court striking down Roe.  Johnson gave lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit, brought by one of the state’s three operating abortion clinics, thirty days to set a schedule for an upcoming trial on the law’s legality.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry indicated that he would appeal the judge’s order, stating that he expects the case to end up at the state Supreme Court.