In an effort to project legitimacy for the newly-assumed government of Afghanistan, Taliban leaders seek an invitation to the United National General Assembly in New York City, one of the sites struck by al Qaeda from their country on September 11, 2001, the Washington Post reports.

The Taliban sent the request to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres earlier this week asking that Mohammad Suhail Shaheen be recognized as the group’s permanent representative to the United Nations.

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in late August, just prior to a US military withdrawal from the country, the new regime has attempted to gain recognition and legitimacy from foreign governments.  No country has formally recognized the religious leaders as the legitimate representatives of Afghanistan, although some have contacted the declared leaders in Kabul in unofficial capacities.

Space Force (…of the 24th and a half centuryyyyy…) have debuted their inaugural uniforms, according to CNN.  Gen. Jay Raymond, commander of the US Space Force, debuted the new uniforms at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber conference.  The dark blue tunic-style tops of the dress uniforms feature a streak of silver buttons diagonally on the wearer’s right.

“President Donald J. Trump proved to the Republican Party that the only way to meaningfully advance conservative policy is through strong, uncompromising leadership. That’s why as a Republican running for Missouri’s open U.S. Senate seat, I am committed to finding new leadership in the Upper Chamber when Republicans win back the majority in 2022. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s 46-year Senate career and 14-year career as the GOP’s leader in the U.S. Senate is not without accomplishment. It would be disingenuous to suggest he is anything but a conservative who has played a significant role in advancing our cause of the last four decades. However, we have all watched this conservative fighter from Kentucky morph into the power-merchant of D.C., prioritizing special interests and personal influence over America.”

“Now he is actively engaged in working against President Trump and the MAGA movement as we chart our path back to the majority – seemingly unaware why he even has his job in the first place. The reality is that the America First agenda is a direct threat to the D.C. swamp, and a strong MAGA movement makes Mitch McConnell an endangered species. McConnell has lost touch with our conservative movement. He has also lost his fight, and his leadership over the Republican Party does not represent our values. That is why I am committing to Missouri and the Nation that as a U.S. Senator, I will seek to support fresh, bold conservative leadership in the Senate” – BDSM freak and former Missouri Gov Eric Greitens op-ed in Breitbart.

“A Russian businessman who once led the financial services of a military unit at the Leningrad Naval base funneled thousands of dollars to a Trump Super PAC and other Republican entities in 2016, Forensic News can reveal. On Monday, the Department of Justice indicted two veteran GOP operatives, Doug Wead and Jesse Benton, for disguising the true source of funds of donations made in 2016. Now, Forensic News can report that the unnamed ‘Foreign National 1’ in the indictment is Roman Vasilenko, a reserve naval officer whose resume, according to analysts, appears suspicious and suggests a relationship with Russian intelligence.”

“The indictment of Benton and Wead details their months-long conspiracy to have Benton act as a ‘straw donor’ for Vasilenko, who secured photographs with then-candidate Trump due to his covert donations. Wead, 75, and Benton, 43, are well known in Republican political circles. Wead served as an advisor to numerous GOP candidates including George H.W. Bush, and most recently Rand Paul. Like Wead, Benton has worked with Rand and Ron Paul and acted as Mitch McConnell’s 2014 campaign manager. According to the DOJ, Wead told ‘Foreign National 1’ that he could meet Trump in exchange for a payment. In the ensuing weeks, Wead and the unnamed foreign national met Trump and took photographs with him at a campaign fundraiser before Benton donated $25,000 of Vasilenko’s money to a Trump Super PAC. Forensic News identified Vasilenko as ‘Foreign National 1’ after finding mention of Wead on a website for a Russian company called Life is Good, owned by Vasilenko. Research into Vasilenko in Russian media sources revealed the picture of Vasilenko posing with Trump, confirming his role in the indictment” – Forensic News.

Marc Elias, Democracy Docket: “While most of the legislative focus has been on the registration and voting process, significantly less attention has been paid to another point of vulnerability in our election system – the rules for tabulating and certifying elections. The right to vote is hollow if it does not include the right to have your vote counted and, if your candidate receives the highest number of votes, to have her assume the office to which she was elected. Republicans are taking aim at this vulnerability. Since the violent insurrection on January 6, Trump and his allies have turned their attention to the state processes that are used to certify election results.”

“In a number of states, they are enacting laws and policies that weaken fair election administration and nonpartisan election certification. In Georgia, for example, a new law allows the state legislature to effectively control the counting and certification process – stripping the secretary of state of some of his authority as retribution for his handling of the 2020 post-election and certification process. It is clear that we need new safeguards to ensure a fair counting of ballots and certification of the winner.”

“Two weeks after the 2020 election, a team of lawyers closely allied with Donald J. Trump held a widely watched news conference at the Republican Party’s headquarters in Washington. At the event, they laid out a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that a voting machine company had worked with an election software firm, the financier George Soros and Venezuela to steal the presidential contest from Mr. Trump. But there was a problem for the Trump team, according to court documents released on Monday evening. By the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump’s campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the separate software company, Smartmatic.”

“The memo had determined that those allegations were untrue. The court papers, which were initially filed late last week as a motion in a defamation lawsuit brought against the campaign and others by a former Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, contain evidence that officials in the Trump campaign were aware early on that many of the claims against the companies were baseless.”

“Even though the memo was hastily assembled, it rebutted a series of allegations that Ms. Powell and others were making in public. It found: That Dominion did not use voting technology from the software company, Smartmatic, in the 2020 election. That Dominion had no direct ties to Venezuela or to Mr. Soros. And that there was no evidence that Dominion’s leadership had connections to left-wing ‘antifa’ activists, as Ms. Powell and others had claimed. As Mr. Coomer’s lawyers wrote in their motion in the defamation suit, ‘The memo produced by the Trump campaign shows that, at least internally, the Trump campaign found there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories regarding Dominion’ and Mr. Coomer” – New York Times.

“Federal prosecutors Tuesday charged a retired underground miner with extortion and attempting to destroy a building and accused him of leaving pipe bombs and threatening letters in locations across Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. John Douglas Allen, 75, of Whittemore was arrested late Monday following an FBI investigation of a dangerous crime involving homemade bombs, coded letters, spy cameras and counter-surveillance tactics ripped from a Hollywood thriller. He is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court in Bay City on Tuesday.”

“The bombs, discovered earlier this month at cellphone stores in Cheboygan and Sault Ste. Marie, were stored inside boxes and contained handcuffs with either the nickname ‘Handcuff Johnny’ or the initials ‘HJ.’ FBI investigators analyzed the bombs, which consisted of a metal pipe with two metal end caps containing explosive powder main charges. Metal spheres and nails were found within each device. Allen was charged almost one month after the first of several letters was also found inside a polka-dotted envelope, packaged inside a sealed zip lock bag near a telecommunications tower in St. Ignace, north of the Mackinac Bridge. The letter, which appeared to have been attached to a nearby fence but fell to the ground, contained a threat and extortion demand to AT&T, Verizon and other providers. The letters claimed CMT had almost 30 members who were ‘prepared to travel throughout this Country and begin distroying (sic) inner city tower communication,’ unless several demands were followed, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court. The demands included a $5 million payment and that the telecommunication companies cease distributing ‘immoral content,’ including pornography, cursing and ‘all manner of indecent communication'” – The Detroit News.

AP: “The lies about election fraud, which range from false claims about the winner of the 2020 presidential race to accusations about this month’s California recall process, have state and local election officials worried about the future. As gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia approach this fall, and next year’s national midterms near, election officials are struggling to combat disinformation and assure voters their ballots are secure. Many of these nonpartisan bureaucrats are asking themselves how they should counter false narratives.”

“The onus for quieting wrong accusations should be on the political campaigns and parties that have perpetuated them, said Tammy Patrick, senior adviser for the D.C.-based nonprofit Democracy Fund, which advocates for election officials. But the responsibility for debunking those claims instead has fallen on election officials. ‘Most election officials are not PR or communications specialists,’ said Patrick, a former election official in Maricopa County, Arizona. ‘For years, we have been saying election officials now need to be IT managers, and then they need to be cybersecurity managers. Last year, they were public health officials. Now, they need to be experts in misinformation in a hyper-polarized environment.'”

“The FBI has more than doubled its domestic terrorism caseload in little more than a year and a half and doubled the amount of bureau personnel working on domestic terrorism investigations, FBI Director Chris Wray testified Tuesday. ‘The domestic terrorism caseload has exploded,’ Wray said during an appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. ‘Since the spring of 2020… we’ve more than doubled our domestic terrorism caseload, from about 1,000 to around 2,700 investigations,’ Wray said. ‘We’ve surged personnel to match, more than doubling the amount of people working that threat from the year before.'”

“The stark jump is in part due to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which has resulted in more than 600 arrests (with hundreds more arrests in the works). Wray, responding to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), said the domestic terrorism caseload had been on the rise in the years before the Jan. 6 attack. ‘[It] has been going up quite significantly over the past few years,’ Wray said. ‘It’s been a really significant jump there'” – Huffington Post.

Spotted by Twitter user @yourgeniushands in Charlotte, North Carolina Sunday.

Forbes:  “A lawyer representing Eric Trump in the New York Attorney General’s civil suit alleging the Trump Organization committed fraud has quit, according to a court filing he submitted last week.  Marc Mukasey of Mukasey Frenchman LLP informed a New York state Supreme Court judge in Manhattan that he was withdrawing from the case on Sept. 14. The move comes one day after a judge’s order to seal a stipulation between the parties was filed. Before that agreement, the docket shows no activity in this case since January. It’s not clear if there’s any connection between the agreement and Mukasey’s departure.

“Mukasey declined to comment on the record for this story. He has represented Eric Trump in the case since it was filed in August 2020. Eric and representatives from the Trump Organization have not replied to inquiries.  A former law partner of Rudy Giuliani, Mukasey’s other clients have included Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, oil-field service company Halliburton and basketball coach Rick Pitino.  New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is investigating the Trump Organization over allegations that it falsified the value of its assets to secure loans and tax breaks.  Eric will continue to be represented by criminal defense attorney Alan Futerfas.”

Residents in AOC's district say how much they think the rich pay in taxeshttps://t.co/ntOMANt6ao

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 21, 2021

McDonald’s Corporate Blog: “For more than four decades, the McDonald’s Happy Meal has lived up to its name, bringing joy to children and families around the globe. We all know the scene of kids tearing open their Happy Meal boxes, ready to eat and eager to play. And part of what makes this experience so special – in addition to the delicious food – is the iconic Happy Meal Toy. Our customers who love experiencing Happy Meals with the kids in their lives today also care deeply about protecting the environment for this next generation’s future. That’s why I’m excited to share some exciting news that will mean a lot to the millions of families we serve each day.”

“Today we announced McDonald’s ambition to drastically reduce plastics and offer sustainable Happy Meal toys globally by the end of 2025. Transitioning to more renewable, recycled, and certified materials for our Happy Meal toys will result in an approximately 90% reduction in virgin fossil fuel-based plastic use against a 2018 baseline. For comparison, the average person uses more than 220 pounds of plastic annually, so this is equivalent to more than 650,000 individuals eliminating plastics from their lives each year. Protecting the planet for our shared future demands that we look at all parts of our business, including the customer experience. I’m proud that nothing is off the table for our leadership, partners, and families. Together, we’re expanding our positive impact on the environment through the transformation of one of McDonald’s most beloved icons.”

“House Democrats are planning to introduce a package of proposed new limits on executive power on Tuesday, beginning a post-Trump push to strengthen checks on the presidency that they hope will compare to the overhauls that followed the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. Democrats have spent months negotiating with the Biden White House to refine a broad set of proposals that amount to a point-by-point rebuke of the ways that Donald J. Trump shattered norms over the course of his presidency. The Democrats have compiled numerous bills into a package they call the Protecting Our Democracy Act. The legislation would make it harder for presidents to offer or bestow pardons in situations that raise suspicion of corruption, refuse to respond to oversight subpoenas, spend or secretly freeze funds contrary to congressional appropriations, and fire inspectors general or retaliate against whistle-blowers, among many other changes.”

“The legislation’s lead sponsor, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, said he hoped it would receive a floor vote ‘this fall.’ While the bill would constrain President Biden and his successors, its implicit rebuke of Mr. Trump’s behavior in the White House may limit how many Republicans are willing to vote for it. Under Senate rules, at least 10 Republicans would need to support it for that chamber to hold a vote on such a bill. But supporters noted that GOP senators previously supported significant components of the bill, like requiring the Justice Department to turn over logs of contacts with the White House and constraining a president’s ability to declare a national emergency and spend money in ways Congress did not approve” – New York Times.

UNcon 2021, also known as the United Nations General Assembly, kicked off Tuesday in the planetary capital of New York City to crowds of fervent international diplomacy fanboys. Expected to be tops on the agenda were discussions of the still-ongoing pandemic, global warming, and other exciting storylines in the Foreign Policy Cinematic Universe, the AP reports.

While characters such as rougish asshole Jair Bolsonaro, enigmatic sovereign King Abdullah II of Jordan, and hotshot newcomer Naftali Bennet will address the assembly in person, many diplomacy nerds will undoubtedly be disappointed to learn that Xi Jingping, who plays fan-favorite supervillain “Premier of the People’s Republic of China” will appear only via video. Despite Xi’s and other absences, UNcon 2021 is still sure to bring plenty of exciting surprises that put the UN in FUN.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: “Arkansas is using federal coronavirus relief funds to buy children’s books about the coronavirus for distribution to schools in the state that are produced by a company co-founded by former Gov. Mike Huckabee. The Department of Education inked a $245,300 deal with the Florida-based business EverBright Media to distribute ‘The Kids Guide to Coronavirus’ booklets to Arkansas schools in 2020. The department plans to spend $265,448 in federal funds on updated versions of the books this year, according to a purchase order provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by the department. EverBright Media, whose associated children’s educational material brands include The Kids Guide and Learn Our History, was founded by Huckabee in 2011, according to the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas.”

“Education Secretary Johnny Key announced the contract at one of Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s then-daily coronavirus updates in August 2020, saying the books were distributed to every elementary school in the state, both public and private. Kimberly Mundell, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education’s Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, said Key was aware of the connection to Huckabee, who was the state’s governor from 1996 to 2007.”

“The Sudanese government announced on Tuesday morning that its military and security services had foiled an attempted coup from within the country’s armed forces. The apparent coup attempt comes with Sudan’s transitional government – in which power is shared between civilians and generals – facing crises on several fronts two years after dictator Omar al-Bashir was toppled in a popular uprising. According to the Sudanese military, the coup attempt began at 3am local time on Tuesday, with several military units trying to take control of the national radio and television stations and other strategic locations in Khartoum.”

“The perpetrators reportedly came mainly from armored units of the Sudanese military and patrolled the capital with dozens of tanks. Several hours after the alleged coup started, the Sudanese government called for the public to go out to the streets to defend the gains of the revolution. But soon after that, the government announced the coup was foiled. Sudanese officials said around 50 senior military officers and civilians were arrested for their alleged roles in the coup. Sudanese military officials told several Arab media outlets that the perpetrators were supporters of the Bashir regime and were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood” – Axios.

Some heroes are made. This one was born. Read more about this unidentified Atlanta, Georgia-area champion of extreme awesomeness at CBS 46. National Zero will follow up when, not if, this man is given a sponsorship by Mountain Dew. He’s too extreme not to endorse their product.

Daily Beast: “Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump will give the keynote speech next month at an anti-vaccine conference, marking the latest alliance between the Trump family and the GOP’s fringiest elements. Trump is set to speak at the Truth About Cancer Live! convention between Oct. 22 and 24 in Nashville, joining a speakers’ lineup that includes some of the most prominent promoters of disinformation about vaccines, as well as leading figures in the QAnon conspiracy movement.”

“The conference is the brainchild of Ty and Charlene Bollinger, two major promoters of anti-vaccine disinformation who have made tens of millions of dollars promoting both alternative health cures for cancer and vaccine fears. The Bollingers have dubbed the coronavirus vaccine ‘that abominable vaccine,’ according to a Center for Public Integrity report, and sell a $200 video series promoting vaccine fearmongering on their website. Trump confirmed his scheduled speech in an email to The Daily Beast. ‘I am not there to talk about vaccines,’ Trump wrote. ‘I am in Nashville to talk about the accomplishments of the 45th President of the United States.’ Trump disputed the idea that the conference is ‘anti-vaccine,’ pointing to his vaccinated status. ‘As to labeling something an anti-vaccine event, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to attend as a vaccinated person if it was,’ Trump wrote. The Bollingers and ‘Truth About Cancer’ didn’t respond to a request for comment.”

“Two men have been arrested after police said they found them with a car boot-full of Kentucky fried chicken and over $100,000 in cash as they tried to cross the border into Auckland despite New Zealand’s strict Covid-19 lockdown. The men were arrested after allegedly trying to flee from police near the Auckland border. When their car was searched, police said they found a large quantity of KFC, as well as the cash and a number of empty ounce bags.”

“The arrest struck a chord with New Zealanders – especially Aucklanders, who have spent a month in a strict level four lockdown that does not allow restaurants to open or residents to order takeaway food. In such an environment, fast food can take on the aura of a high-value illicit substance. Last week, a man was charged by police after posting a social media video of crossing the Auckland boundary in search of McDonald’s” – The Guardian.