The administration of Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is retreating from the threat DeSantis made to withhold the salaries of county board of education members who vote to impose mask mandates in their districts, Politico reports.  The retreat seems to come from the realization by DeSantis and his staff that they cannot legally withhold the pay because the school board members aren’t on state payrolls.

“The entire school district community shouldn’t suffer just because a few activist, anti-science school board members want to impose overreaching mandates on every student,” DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw said in a statement to Politico.  Pushaw went on to say that the board members who vote for mask wearing will face the “consequences of their decisions.”

Canada will send some of its Special Forces troops to its embassy in Kabul to prepare it for closure, and the United States and the United Kingdom are sending troops to defend their consulates as they evacuate all but bare-bones personnel as US military forces continue their exit.

The Associated Press reports the Canadian Special Forces will help current embassy staff leave, and they’ll stand guard as a skeleton crew take the final action to shut down the facility.  The soldiers will not stay on site.

President Joe Biden ordered 3,000 troops to the Kabul airport to assist thousands of Americans still in the country to evacuate.  The Taliban is steadily taking over control of the south Asian country, just weeks before the final withdrawal.

There are no pediatric intensive care beds in the entire Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area, according to the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, and there are just 75 ICU beds for adults, reports the Dallas Morning News.

The region has 1,500 ICU beds in general to serve the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States.  The area has seen a surge in coronavirus cases as the delta variant sweeps through the region.  The hospital council said more than 340 patients were on ventilators.

Hospital staffing and beds are in short supply in Texas:  While Republican Governor Greg Abbott has refused to implement any mask or social distancing requirements, he is soliciting help from health care professionals in other states.

AP: “The conservative activist lawyer that sued China for $20 trillion over the coronavirus pandemic is now seeking $5 million in a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump ally Roger Stone over comments he made on a social media site popular with far-right extremists. Larry Klayman filed the lawsuit in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, arguing the political provocateur made a false statement about his status as a lawyer and levied a false accusation that Klayman had molested his children.”

“Stone posted a comment on Gab that called Klayman a ‘warped former lawyer that the 11th circuit found guilty of molesting his own children.’ After Klayman demanded it be taken down, Stone posted a ‘clarification’ that further insulted Klayman by referring to a profanity. Stone also made additional harmful and false claims, the suit said. While Klayman was suspended from practicing law in Washington, D.C., he remains a lawyer licensed in Florida. Klayman said in the lawsuit that his ex-wife made a false claim against him about sexually inappropriate contact with their children during a messy divorce and custody battle. He says the claim was investigated and he was never charged with a crime. Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, is known for his numerous lawsuits, often targeting Democratic politicians. He’s also sued his own mother, as well as China, accusing the country of unleashing COVID-19 as a ‘biological weapon.'”

Tomorrow and Saturday, let your free flag fly! ‘Cause you can get a Bacon or Sausage, Egg & Swiss Croissant FOR FREE. No catch. Available during breakfast hours only.

— Wendy’s (@Wendys) August 12, 2021

In a unsurprising bit of locking the barn door after the horse has escaped (and wrecked a shopping mall, damaged three dozen cars and tried to impregnate four mares, a donkey and a large dog), Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced the formation of a coronavirus rapid response team.

However, the rapid response team will not try in any way to prevent the spread of the pandemic by promoting vaccines or public health steps like mask wearing, according to CNN; instead, the response will be to immediately provide a monoclonal antibody treatment to anyone who become infected.

“This is the most effective treatment that we’ve yet encountered for people who are infected with Covid-19,” DeSantis argued. “This, applied early and properly, has the ability to reduce your likelihood of being hospitalized.”  DeSantis said nothing about promoting efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“The people of Wisconsin are lucky to have a strong and great leader like Representative Janel Brandtjen, who issued subpoenas for Brown (Green Bay) and Milwaukee Counties, and all of their election evidence and so called results. Wisconsin shows many (to put it mildly) signs of cheating in the 2020 election, and people want answers, now. We still don’t know why Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, a New Yorker*, had multiple keys to the Election Day counting rooms, and a City of Green Bay employee ID when records show he was never employed by Green Bay.”

“A Milwaukee election employee even acknowledged dropping off just the margin of ballots needed for a Biden win at 3:00AM. The Great American Experiment cannot withstand corruption. We must demand our elected officials follow the law, and WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE. All eyes are on Wisconsin as they begin their election audit. Hopefully Republican Speaker Robin Vos has the integrity and strength Wisconsin needs to support Rep. Brandtjen’s efforts. Our Country is counting on it!” – Statement from the Former Guy.

* Adding that “New Yorker” bit means “this guy’s a Jew”, just in case any of his fans didn’t pick up when seeing name “Spitzer-Rubenstein”. Almost as obvious as if he’d called him a “Globalist”.

“Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett refuses to block Indiana University’s vaccine mandate for students. She acted alone and gave no explanation” reports a noticeably butthurt Disclose.tv.

The leaders of the 16.6-million Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wrote a letter to its congregants Thursday urging them to get the vaccination against coronavirus and wear masks to stop the spread of the pandemic, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

“We find ourselves fighting a war against the ravages of COVID-19 and its variants, an unrelenting pandemic,” the governing board, known as the First Presidency, wrote. “We want to do all we can to limit the spread of these viruses. We know that protection from the diseases they cause can only be achieved by immunizing a very high percentage of the population.”

The letter ended, “We can win this war if everyone will follow the wise and thoughtful recommendations of medical experts and government leaders.”

Anton Lazzaro, a Republican consultant and former Congressional campaign official from Minnesota, was arrested by federal law enforcement agents on Thursday for federal child sex trafficking, an announcement from the Department of Justice reports.

According to the charging announcement, the 30-year-old Bitcoin investor “conspired with others to recruit and solicit six minor victims to engage in commercial sex acts.”  He is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, five counts of sex trafficking of minors, one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor, and three counts of obstruction.

Lazzaro served campaign manager for GOP candidate Lacy Johnson, who lost to Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar; Johnson claims she knew nothing of Lazzaro’s alleged activities.  Lazzaro also ran the Big Tent Republicans PAC, which had collected funds and donated $22,000 to GOP candidates in California, Minnesota, Michigan and New Mexico.

“Donald Trump’s fundraising committee has hired two political operatives familiar with campaigns in Iowa, the state that typically kicks off the race for the White House, signaling his interest in running in 2024. An aide with Save America, the leadership political action committee that Trump began after losing the 2020 election, told staff and advisers in a memo Thursday that Eric Branstad and Alex Latcham are joining as senior advisers” Bloomberg reports.

“A Save America spokesman, Taylor Budowich, confirmed the hires and said Latcham and Branstad will help on ‘many political matters.’ Trump has been hinting about another presidential bid, even as he has tried to steer clear of activities that would trigger federal election laws that would require him to register as a candidate – and limit spending. Some Republicans had been hoping that Trump would fade away, as he continues to falsely claim he won last year’s election. Both Latcham and Branstad are Iowa natives with deep experience in the caucuses that have led off the presidential nominating contests. Latcham was Trump’s Iowa political director during the 2016 general election campaign then was deputy political director in the Trump White House. Branstad was Trump’s state director in Iowa in 2016, then a senior White House adviser at the Commerce Department. During the 2020 Trump re-election campaign, Branstad was senior advisor in Iowa.”

We really wanted to sample from a bunch of different sites, but there’s nothing yet on Breitbart, the Gateway Pundit, or Fox News about the Census’s bad news for MAGA world, so we pulled some moping and misery from The Hill instead. Click on any part of these to open in a new tab.

NeoReactionary 30 y/o Boomer • 2 hours ago
️The country is slowly becoming central America. And it shows.
Thu, 8/12/2021 1:52 PM on ‘Census shows US growth driven by minorities; white pop falls under 60 percent’

Tin Can Sailor • 2 hours ago
️The leftist sponsored invasion of the barbarians is working. Read about the fall of Rome. It’ll tell you how this ends.
Thu, 8/12/2021 1:53 PM on ‘Census shows US growth driven by minorities; white pop falls under 60 percent’

Obama_Drama • an hour ago
️Why do liberals hate white people?
White is beautiful
Thu, 8/12/2021 1:58 PM on ‘Census shows US growth driven by minorities; white pop falls under 60 percent’

Rusty • an hour ago
️That’s the Jewish Plan for Domination, attack Christians to succeed in the Take Over.
Thu, 8/12/2021 1:59 PM on ‘Census shows US growth driven by minorities; white pop falls under 60 percent’

Obama_Bin_Liden • an hour ago
️Demoncrats have succeeded in changing the demographic structure of the United States by turning America into a third world dumpster. America will soon become the new South Africa.
Thu, 8/12/2021 2:03 PM on ‘Census shows US growth driven by minorities; white pop falls under 60 percent’

“A Russian millionaire and politician has confessed to shooting a man he says he mistook for a bear. Igor Redkin was served a two-month house arrest sentence as an interim restrictive measure for accidentally shooting the man outside a dump near the village of Ozernovsky, in the Ust-Bolsheretsky district, according to state-owned news agency RIA.”

“The shooting itself took place on August 2, and the man later died in hospital. Redkin is a member of the ruling United Russia, of which President Vladimir Putin is the de facto leader. It took the wealthy politician four days to confess to the crime, after it was reported by the regional chief executive officer of the Investigative Committee on August 6. Speaking on August 10, Redkin told officials he was shooting at the dump in an attempt to scare off a bear but hit a man instead. The shooting was one of two disastrous incidents connected to Redkin to take place in recent days. On Thursday, a helicopter owned by his private company crashed into a lake in the Kamchatka peninsula in far eastern Russia, leaving eight passengers feared dead” CNN reports.

National Zero will update this story in the likely event it turns out that the helicopter passengers just so happened to be witnesses to the shooting who were invited on a free “sightseeing tour” and the pilot was banging Redkin’s wife or something. We’ll also try to find a pic of the bear guy.

AP: “The Census Bureau on Thursday issued its most detailed portrait yet of how the U.S. has changed over the past decade, releasing a trove of demographic data that will be used to redraw political maps across an increasingly diverse country. The census figures have been eagerly awaited by states, and they are sure to set off an intense partisan battle over representation at a time of deep national division and fights over voting rights. The numbers could help determine control of the U.S. House in the 2022 elections and provide an electoral edge for the next decade. The data will also shape how $1.5 trillion in federal spending is distributed each year.”

“The figures show continued migration to the South and Southwest and population losses in the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia. The numbers also indicate that the white population is aging and has fallen to its smallest share of the total population on record, though there are some exceptions. The share of the white population actually grew in coastal communities in the Carolinas and Virginia, as well as in counties stretching through the midsections of Georgia and Alabama. The population under age 18 is increasingly diverse.”

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that it now requires all employees who work in patient care to get fully vaccinated, joining the Department of Veterans Affairs as the second Cabinet agency making vaccines mandatory, Politico reports.

The order applies to approximately 25,000 of DHHS’s 80,000 people in its workforce.  It will apply to the employees in the Indian Health Services and National Institutes of Health who have patient contact or who are working on clinical trials.  The order will also cover 6,000 members of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, including those who are currently being deployed in hot zones in the United States to cover medical care in hospitals.

“Our number one goal is the health and safety of the American public, including our federal workforce, and the vaccines are the best tool we have to protect people from Covid-19, prevent the spread of the Delta variant and save lives,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said.

While we don’t know what question exactly the adulteress is responding to here, we can guess it’s some made up or highly exaggerated bullshit about vaccinated person dying. Her answer: “This is concerning to me and that’s why I’m saying there’s more research needed by the FDA before the FDA approves these vaccines,” because once approved it’ll legitimize vaccine mandates and “I fear they’ll become law in some cities and some states. Biden would love to make it the law of the land.”

The unfaithful, amoral Stygian hag continued with “I’ve talked to local hospitals here in my district… Yes, the waiting rooms get full, but guess what? The waiting rooms are full of, all kinds of things. Not just COVID, stuff you know, car accidents, trauma, other illnesses, cancer, and so forth… So while the news tries to tell us those hospitals are slammed at the present, that’s just the case! Everyone needs to get back down, back down to common sense and remember that… You know, we’re human, we can’t live forever… Let’s be rational with this, let’s be careful and conscious and let’s not turn into an authoritarian regime that forces shots into people’s arms that don’t want it.”

https://youtu.be/OWv7TVD2b7s

Pillow magnate and man facing billion-dollar lawsuit Mike Lindell opened today’s session of his cyber symposium by claiming he was attacked when he returned to his Sioux City hotel Wednesday night after his conference shut for the night.  Without being able to offer any evidence or details, Lindell later claimed it was “antifa” members who attacked him.

“A San Fernando Valley Army veteran was convicted Wednesday for attempting to bomb a rally in Long Beach in 2019, officials said. Mark Steven Domingo, 28, of Reseda, was found guilty of providing material support to terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California. Domingo has been in federal custody since he was arrested in April 2019 and faces a maximum sentence of life in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.”

“He was accused of plotting an attack at an expected white supremacist rally on April 26, 2019 as retribution for the New Zealand mosque shootings that left 51 people dead weeks earlier. An investigation was launched after Domingo posted on online forums where ‘he expressed support for violent jihad, a desire to seek retribution for attacks against Muslims, and a willingness to become a martyr,’ the release states. Domingo then purchased and provided to the confederate and the bomb-maker – who was an undercover law enforcement officer – several hundred 3.5-inch nails to be used as shrapnel for the bombs, which he specifically chose because they were long enough to penetrate organs in the human body, the release says.” KTLA reports.

Not for nothing, but you know, just maybe if Domingo was successful in blowing up a bunch of Neo-Nazi Trump fans we might not’ve been too upset over it. Just throwing that out there. It’s not like we’re calling for Al Qaeda and ISIS to attack gatherings of MAGAmericans, that’d be a horrible-ish thing to say. We just wouldn’t get nearly as worked up over it if they would choose certain targets over others is all. Or if ISIS and Al Qaeda challenged the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to meet them somewhere like, say, an empty field in Oklahoma, to square off, we wouldn’t pay any amount over $50 to watch that on pay-per-view. Fine, $90. $90 max. Any more and we’re pirating it.

A Washoe County, Nevada parent sent their child to school knowing that the student had tested positive for the coronavirus, causing about 80 students and staff to go into quarantine, the Associated Press reports.  The parent, who reportedly also tested positive, refuses to communicate with the school district.

The student, who attends Marce Herz Middle School in Reno, triggered the school district to initiate its COVID protocols.  Students and teachers in classes with the student were told they could return to classes if they either proved they were vaccinated or spent five days quarantining, after which they must have a negative coronavirus test.

The school district urged parents and students to work with public health and school district officials to track contacts.  “It’s imperative that we collect information from positive cases in order to reduce transmission in the community,” it said in a statement.