The Senate on Thursday passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, instituting expanded background checks for gun buyers under age 21, closing a loophole that allowed domestic partners convicted of abuse to obtain weapons, and incentivizing states to create red flag laws, fund school safety and mental health programs, among other provisions, the first ever national firearms control legislation in decades, spurred by horrific slaughter in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas in May.

It fell far short of a ban on assault rifles and universal background checks, but it’s a small step in the right direction. The bill’s passage comes on the same day the Supreme Court lowered the bar for concealed carry permits in six states, New York included, though Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh stopped short of allowing an absolute apocalyptic battle royale in all 50 states.

This is a one-off. For now. National Zero is backlogged as fuck and rather than triage coverage let’s just do it with an homage to my friend and mentor’s traditional weekly roundup. Except this is all news that would’ve otherwise been published as individual articles rather than thoughts. Well maybe some “thoughts”, but whatever. It’s still different. Especially the NZ logo bullet points.

Wednesday’s “Order 66” sweep by the FBI snagged yet another MAGA scumbag: Arizona GOP Chairwoman “Chemtrails Kelli” Ward and her husband whose name isn’t important because fuck him. Both were served subpoenas for their involvement in the fake electors scam.

Mo Brooks wants to talk to the January 6th Committee, with strings attached that it be in public, only House members question him (as opposed to staff lawyers or investigators), and strictly about January 6th itself. Weird how he just suddenly decided to cooperate this week, like something changed his mind. Wonder what could’ve happened to Mo to precipitate such a switch.

Kind of forgot that Trump minions still have active litigation against the select committee and companies that have complied with subpoenas. Well now there’s one less, as Trump spokesworm Taylor Budowich’s complaint against the Committee and Chase for handing over his bank records was tossed Thursday. Sucks for him. Maybe he should stop being such a Budo-bitch.

Pennsylvania MAGA Congressman Mike Kelly publicly denied RonAnon’s attempt to blame him for the fake electoral votes clusterfuck Johnson’s been snagged in since Tuesday’s reveal. “Senator [Ron] Johnson’s statements about Representative Kelly are patently false. Mr. Kelly has not spoken to Sen. Johnson for the better part of a decade, and he has no knowledge of the claims Mr. Johnson is making related to the 2020 election,” said Kelly in a statement. That’s not really something a person used to saying “Deal with it libtards” would say. Kelly – who was knee deep in the “Stop the Steal” shit and was listed as the lead plaintiff on the first big MAGA election lawsuit the Supreme Court spiked in December 2020 – is probably looking at what happened Wednesday to pajama boy Jeff Clark and the rest of them and decided that maybe Merrick Garland isn’t fucking around. Or Kelly got served with a subpoena himself. Remember, the DOJ didn’t actually announce any of yesterday’s “Order 66”, which is why it all got reported piecemeal by various outlets. ABC’s source for the raid on Clark was his friggin neighbor. Who knows who else got swept up?

Congresswoman Liz Cheney is trying to do exactly what the Orange God Emperor didn’t want her to do and Wyoming Republicans failed to prevent by reaching out to the Democrats in the state to step up and vote for her in the August 16th primary against Trump-backed primary opponent Harriet Hageman, the New York Times reports. Back in February Trump commanded the state’s GOP lawmakers to outlaw the same-day registration option and cut off Liz’s potential lifeline.

The fat coward didn’t even mention Cheney’s name in the statement, making it even more painfully stupid when he said it “makes total sense that only Democrats vote in the Democrat primary and only Republicans vote in the Republican primary,” as if he opposed same day registration or open primaries in any of the other approximately 31 states that offer either or both. For whatever reason the Wyoming GOP fucked off and ended their session without passing the bill. Now, after Dem turnout in open primaries helped sink Trump-backed Congressmen Madison Cawthorn and Jody Hice in their respective races this Spring, is hoping for the same play. Obviously it’s a little more to ask for than just simply voting in an open primary, but it probably helps that there’s effectively no chance any of the Democrat hopefuls would ever win, so why the hell not?

Samples of sewage water taken from the waste management systems running under London have found active strains of the polio virus in east and north London, raising a concern that the virus is circulating around the city, Time Magazine reports.

Dubbing it a “national incident,” the UK Health Security Agency said that “it is likely there has been some spread between closely linked individuals in north and east London and they are shedding the type 2 poliovirus strain in their feces.”  Types 1 & 3 of the poliovirus have been eradicated.

The strain found in the London sewers is consistent with the weakened strain used to make oral polio vaccines which are still used in many underdeveloped countries, which may pass through the patient’s body and end up in wastewater.  The UK switched to injections for vaccines two decades ago to avoid such problems.

“The new era of criminalizing politics is worsening in the US. Yesterday more than a dozen DOJ law enforcement officials searched Jeff Clark’s house in a pre-dawn raid, put him in the streets in his pajamas, and took his electronic devices. All because Jeff saw fit to investigate voter fraud. This is not America, folks. The weaponization of government must end. Let me be very clear. We stand by Jeff and so must all patriots in this country,” says former Trump White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought in a statement on behalf of former Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, his work buddy at some bullshit right wing think tank or lobbying firm or whatever both are being warehoused at until there’s another Republican president. Lol.

The January 6 Committee is an unconstitutional political sideshow. It is rapidly losing the interest of the American people and now resorts to siccing federal law enforcement on political opponents.

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) June 23, 2022

It’s not like asking for a pardon for any and all crimes he ever committed weeks before any of the other members of Congress involved in the coup attempt demonstrates a consciousness of guilt for certain personal matters – ones completely unrelated to overturning the election that federal law enforcement were likely looking into prior to the election itself or anything.

Oh wait. Yeah reading that again it would seem that Gaetz was in fact asking for a pardon former Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann testified was “as broad as you could describe from the beginning… for any and all things” and had been doing so “since early December [2020],” according to White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Huh. So we guess that does kind of actually demonstrate a consciousness of guilt and Matt Gaetz is kind of right to be freaking the fuck out over it.

• The lengths to which Donald Trump tried to warp the federal government to serve him are unprecedented.  But the institutions held; the Department of Justice’s institutional culture prevented it from turning on the nation.
• Perry (PA), Brooks (AL), Marge (GA), Gaetz (FL), Gohmert (TX), and Biggs (AZ) all sought out pardons for their actions relating to undermining the Constitution.  Each should be asked what crime they thought they committed that required a pardon.
• The heads of every DOJ division, and the Department’s leadership, would have all quit if Trump fired the Acting Attorney General, showing there was significant push-back to Trump’s plan within the administration, forcing Trump to go to outside help (cough, cough, The Proud Boys).
• Still unanswered:  why did Senator Chuck Grassley, the senior member of the Senate, publicly announce on January 5th that he was going to oversee the certification ceremony the following day instead of the Vice President?  What did he know… or what did he think was going to happen?

Thursday’s House January 6th Select Committee hearing will center on the Trump Regime’s efforts to use the Justice Department to legitimize its coup attempt with testimony acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue and the head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Engel who resisted from within against DOJ Trump toady Jeffrey Clark’s takeover scheme.

The European Union granted Ukraine “candidate status,” extending provisional rights to the besieged nation in a largely symbolic move that puts Ukraine on the path to join the economic union in the next decade, Reuters reports.  The EU also issued candidate status to the nation of Moldova, Ukraine’s neighbor.

The move also demonstrates to Russia the solidarity the 28 members of the EU feel with the Ukrainian people, who have been under attack by Russia for the last four months.  When it invaded Ukraine in February, Russia claimed it was doing so to halt the process of NATO and the EU to its borders, saying such encroachment endangers Russia.

“Red flag laws sound harmless on paper,” person who at least twice tried to illegally bring guns onto airliners, would have been barred from owning guns due to red flag laws because of sexual abuse complaints, and lame-duck Republican North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn asserts.  “We all want to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous people.  [Fact check:  No, not all.  Donald Trump’s first action after his inauguration in 2017 was to lift a law banning mentally ill people from possessing guns.].  But remember who the government says that you are.  The CDC has labeled you a national security problem for protecting your health.  [Fact check:  WTF?]  The FBI, last September, call the mothers and wives ‘domestic terrorists’ for protecting your children.  [Fact check:  No, they called people who made threats against education officials ‘domestic terrorists’… because they made terroristic threats.] A House committee labeled half the country as ‘coup sympathetic’ just a few weeks ago.  [Fact check:  Nope.  It said the people who supported Trump’s attempt to undermine the Constitution ‘coup sympathetic … because they are.  And it’s not half, Maddy; it’s more like 10%.]

On Wednesday, the day before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress expose the lengths Donald Trump went to corrupt the Department of Justice, the FBI executed a search warrant on the home of the DOJ lawyer whom Trump wanted to appoint to be Attorney General to facilitate the undermining of the 2020 election, ABC News reports.

The Thursday televised hearing will focus on Trump’s efforts to place lackeys at key positions to push his false claims of election tampering, which will feature the role Jeffrey Clark played in the effort to seat fake state electors to fraudulently throw the election certification into chaos.

Clark composed a letter he wanted the Justice Department to send to battleground states falsely claiming the DOJ found irregularities in ballot counting processes in various states; this was entirely fictitious.  Trump contemplated installing Clark, the head of the DOJ’s civil litigation section, as the head of the Justice Department, a move that would have triggered a cascade of resignations from officials at the Justice Department and White House.

In response to this ruling, we are closely reviewing our options – including calling a special session of the legislature.

Just as we swiftly passed nation-leading gun reform legislation, I will continue to do everything in my power to keep New Yorkers safe from gun violence.

— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) June 23, 2022

A federal judge on Thursday tossed Trump acolyte Tom Barrack’s motion to dismiss the charges of illegally lobbying the Trump Administration on behalf of the UAE, Reuters reports. Barrack faces trial in September.

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a 6-3 Conservative majority decision striking down New York State’s laws requiring gun owners obtain concealed carry permits to be armed in public.

Per University of Texas law Professor Steve Vladeck, the decision isn’t quite the apocalyptic live-fire zone ruling some may have anticipated, explaining “Kavanaugh and the Chief make clear in their concurrence that the Court is only striking down six states’ ‘may-issue’ laws. The 43 states with ‘shall-issue’ licensing regimes ‘may,’ in their words, ‘continue to [have them],'” making it sound as if a simple legislative patch would restore the permitting systems but require applicants to demonstrate a clean record rather than an affirmative need to carry a weapon.

Florida supermarket chain Publix, founded by a family of right wingers who helped fund the Ellipse rally where Trump incited the MAGA terrorist horde to attack the US Capitol, will not be offering the COVID-19 vaccine to children under age five, the Tampa Bay Times reports. The best part is they simply won’t say why – literally a Publix spokeswoman told the Times the company will not be releasing a statement on the matter – leaving us to not-so-baselessly speculate they’re working in concert with tyrannical Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to block the distribution.

Florida was the only one out of 50 states to fail to order COVID-19 vax doses for children under 5 to be distributed to state-run healthcare providers, but since Publix’s vaccine supply comes directly from the federal government, their 832 stores in the state would’ve been a viable enough alternative for parents eager to get their kids the shot. A person who answered the phone at a Publix pharmacy in Brickell, Miami told a National Zero reporter inquiring about an appointment for a toddler the employees do not vaccinate any kids who are under 12 at all and said to call a pediatrician instead. The person did not elaborate when asked about the policy. This was the only one of four calls to Miami Publix pharmacies that was actually answered by a live person.

#CIA is proud to share that our Deputy Associate Director for Talent for Diversity & Inclusion and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Sonya Holt, is one of @WashingtonExec’s Top DE&I Executives to Watch in 2022.

We are grateful for her dedicated efforts as a DE&I champion.

— CIA (@CIA) June 23, 2022

The Central Intelligence Agency was proud Thursday to announce one of its extralegal killing machines Sonya Holt had been named as one of WashingtonExec’s “Top Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Executives to Watch in 2022” for her efforts making the CIA a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. The woman, who probably keeps the severed ears of third world warlords in jars of formaldehyde in her office desk drawer as mementos of her career directing bloody reprisals for attacks on US allied warlords, was described by WashingtonExec as having “launched a cultural competency training course and will be rolling out a DEIA certification program for managers, non-supervisors and DEIA practitioners – though all employees will be encouraged participate.”

“DEIA enables us to better understand our world and leads to better decision-making and problem-solving. It raises our consciousness and opens us up to differing viewpoints and perspectives where no individual or group feels left out or not valued,” said Holt, who has probably more than once in her career considered differing viewpoints and perspectives when deciding whether a man whose fingers are being held less than an inch away from a spinning circular saw blade is telling everything he knows about the buyer of the anthrax samples stolen from a Russian bioweapons lab.

Fat former President Trump has been angered “the point of about to scream at the TV,” while watching every minute so far of the House January 6th Select Committee hearings, growing increasingly furious at reprehensible coward Kevin McCarthy’s moronic decision to boycott and seat zero MAGA Republicans on the select committee, the Washington Post reports.

“There’s no one to defend me,” the disgraced ex-president reportedly has been complaining to anyone who will listen. Even more frustrating to his minions is not having any loyal scumbags to leak information ahead of the hearings and give the Reich in exile the chance to spin ahead of time. So nervous is McCarthy that he’s been begging alcoholic Nazi degenerate Steve Bannon to stop pushing the inane “Speaker of the House Donald Trump” plan to his podcast audience. Bannon in turn has sold Trump on the notion that McCarthy’s fateful decision was a “strategic failure,” further darkening what was Kevin’s already far from certain path to the Speakership.

The best part of all of this is a few weeks ago we were told by Republicans that nobody gives a shit about the committee hearings, it’s a fraudulent partisan kangaroo court, Cheney and Kinzinger are RINOs, ratings will be lower than CNN+, “counter-programming” will totally own the libs, gas prices are more important and blah blah blah. Yet here we are again, for like the fourth or fifth time in under a week reporting on how Trump is going fucking insane over the testimony and evidence, directing his rage at McCarthy over a decision he made last year, one that even to Trump looked like the right call at the time because just calling it “partisan” was supposed to be enough. Sad!

FBI agents on Wednesday seized a cell phone belonging to Nevada Republican Party chairman Michael McDonald as part of the federal investigation into the fake Trump 2020 electors scam, KLAS reports. Agents also tried to serve a subpoena to state party secretary James DeGraffenreid, but could not find him Wednesday, sources told KLAS anchor George Knapp.

The subpoenas, issued in January 2022, state the federal grand jury “are seeking information about your role and participation in the purported slate of electors casting votes for Donald Trump and, to the extent relevant, your role in the events of January 6, 2021,” were served on a number of MAGA scumbags involved with the plot in at least four different states on Wednesday, with the Georgia GOP chair, a Virginia-based Trump campaign operative who directed the fake certificate signing ceremony in Arizona, and an unknown number of fake electors in Michigan all reported by different sources to also have been paid a visit by federal law enforcement on the same day.

High school dropout and QAnon fan Congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s money pit restaurant and bar Shooters in Rifle, Colorado may soon shut its doors for good, the Daily Beast reports.

A bloodhound named Trumpet took Best in Show at the Westminster Dog Show, using its folds and floppy ears to win the top prize.  With an official name of GCHB CH Flessner’s Toot My Own Horn, Trumpet and his owner/handler Heather Helmer topped six other finalists.