A Seekonk, Massachusetts man accused by federal prosecutors of stomping on and destroying television camera equipment during the January 6th domestic terrorist attack–an act caught on film–claimed during an impromptu press conference at his house that he’s a documentary filmmaker and went to Washington that day to document the event.

Twenty-five year old Chase Kevin Allen–a man with three first names but apparently no shirt–declined to confirm that he was the person in photographs of the incident.  “I would not like to comment on that at this time, but I’m working everything out with the courts and whatnot.”

Washington Post: “A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a Florida law that would penalize social media companies for blocking a politician’s posts, a blow to conservatives’ efforts to respond to Facebook and other websites’ suspension of former President Donald Trump. The law was due to go into effect Thursday, but in issuing a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida suggested that the law would be found unconstitutional. ‘The plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits of their claim that these statutes violate the First Amendment,’ Hinkle wrote. ‘There is nothing that could be severed and survive.’ The law laid out fines for tech companies that suspended political candidates in the run-up to an election.”

“Florida legislators approved the law after Facebook, Twitter and YouTube suspended Trump’s accounts for violating their policies following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate and key Trump ally, touted the law as a stand against alleged censorship of conservatives when he signed it in May. But legal experts and tech experts immediately questioned the constitutionality of the law. Netchoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represent companies including Facebook, Google and Amazon, swiftly brought a lawsuit challenging it. ‘This decision upholding the Constitution and federal law is encouraging, and reaffirms what we have been saying: Florida’s statute is an extraordinary overreach, designed to penalize private businesses for their perceived lack of deference to the Government’s political ideology,’ CCIA President Matt S said in a statement. ‘The court’s ruling is a win for internet users and the First Amendment.'”

“A new analysis of validated 2020 voters from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel examines change and continuity in the electorate, both of which contributed to Biden’s victory,” reports the Pew Charitable Trust. The 34 page report offers an extensive breakdown of voting trends from the 2020 Presidential election.

“A Manhattan grand jury has filed indictments against President Trump’s company and its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg. Weisselberg will turn himself in tomorrow. Trump Org will also be arraigned in court, represented by a lawyer” – Washington Post reporter David Farenthold.

Non-Correction: The current version of this article misspelled Alan Weisselberg’s last name as ‘Weaselberg’ in the headline. National Zero does not regret the error and will not be correcting it.

Rescue workers pulled the bodies of two children, aged four and ten, from the rubble of the collapsed Champlain Towers South complex, raising the death toll to 18 confirmed, USA Today reports.  The number of missing people stands at 145.

The casualty update comes as the Washington Post reports that five of the seven members of the condo board responsible for managing the complex resigned in 2019 because of infighting regarding the sluggish scheduling of repairs recommended by an engineering firm.

“We work for months to go in one direction and at the very last minute objections are raised that should have been discussed and resolved right in the beginning,” Anette Goldstein wrote in a September 2019 resignation letter. “This pattern has repeated itself over and over, ego battles, undermining the roles of fellow board members, circulation of gossip and mistruths. I am not presenting a very pretty picture of the functioning of our board and many before us, but it describes a board that works very hard but cannot for the reasons above accomplish the goals we set out to accomplish.”

“This is how all third world banana republics operate. The party in power must punish the opponents. Imprisonment or execution, nothing would surprise me”

– The current top comment on the Breitbart article “Report: Trump Organization, CFO Will Be Charged in NY Investigation but Not Donald Trump“, posted Wednesday afternoon.

The Surfside families I spoke to are desperate for answers

The rescuers are burning through gloves, boots & tools & are under tremendous physical & increasingly emotional strain

And everyone is bracing for the excruciating hours yet to come

A really difficult situation

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 30, 2021

“For the past several months, I have seen a disturbing trend at the National Security Agency. Earlier this year, I sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Austin expressing concern over the politicization of the Agency through the sidelining of Michael Ellis as NSA General Counsel. I asked that Mr. Ellis be reinstated and expressed my concern regarding undue political influence in NSA placing Mr. Ellis on administrative leave. Separately, it has recently come to my attention that NSA has refused to deliver information requested by the Republican Members on the House Intelligence Committee who are trying to fulfill their oversight responsibilities. Now, there is a public report that NSA read the emails of Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Although NSA publicly denied targeting Carlson, I have serious questions regarding this matter that must be answered. Given this disturbing trend, I’ve asked HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes to investigate and find answers on behalf of the American people. The NSA cannot be used as a political instrument, and House Republicans will ensure accountability and transparencv” – Kevin McCarthy via PunchBowl’s Jake Sherman.

TLDR: Either we never hear of it again or Nunes says he has a super important memo revealing the identity of the culprits behind the SPYING which he won’t make it public or share it with the rest of the House Intel committee but it’s DEVASTATING for the libs and Obama Biden and Hillary and Susan Rice and Peter Strzok and Fusion GPS and Andrew McCabe and blah blah blah blah.

JustTheNews.com: “A federal watchdog group filed a complaint Wednesday urging the Office of Special Counsel to investigate statements made by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci to see if they violated government rules on political speech made by federal employees. Protect the Public’s Trust, an ethics watchdog, alleges certain comments Fauci made during interviews are in violation of the Hatch Act, a congressional act that limits federal government employees from engaging in certain political activities using their official authority. The group said that four days before the November 2020 presidential election, Fauci made a series of statements to The Washington Post that ‘may have crossed the line into prohibited political speech,’ which ‘left little doubt regarding which campaign he supported and the dire public health implications associated with choosing one candidate over another.'”

“Though the watchdog’s statement didn’t mention the article by name, The Washington Post published an article of an interview with Fauci on Oct. 31, four days before the election headlined, ”A whole lot of hurt’: Fauci warns of covid-19 surge, offers blunt assessment of Trump’s response.’ In the article, Fauci talks about the state of the pandemic in October as well as former President Trump’s handling of the virus. ‘We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,’ Fauci said in the interview. ‘All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.'”

By a 220 to 190 vote, the House of Representatives voted Wednesday to set up a bipartisan select committee to investigate the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, as supporters of Donald Trump tried to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College votes.

NBC News reports that two Republicans–former Republican conference chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois–joined all the House Democrats in voting to set up the committee.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that the committee will be “complementary, not instead of” the bipartisan Congressional commission proposed earlier and passed by the House, although it was block by GOP Senators.  Joining all Democratic Senators, four Republican Senators voted to set up the special commission, but seven Republicans blocked it using a filibuster.

“At border event with Trump and Abbott I asked Trump if he’s going to apologize for January 6. He did not respond. Crowd of mostly GOP members and staff booed” reports CNN’s Jim Acosta.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld died Tuesday at the age of 88, days before birthday, family members said Wednesday, USA Today reports.  Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006, and he was a principle proponent for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Rumsfeld arrived in Washington, DC during the Nixon Administration, eventually rising to a position of Counselor to the President before taking the job of US Ambassador to NATO in February 1973.  When Nixon resigned, Rumsfeld ultimately became Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staff and then Secretary of Defense.

A former Navy pilot, Rumsfeld led the Pentagon on the day of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  In the wake of the attacks, Rumsfeld pushed for attacks on Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein, falsely believing Hussein had something to do with the al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as another plane hijacking. 

Michigan resident and Army veteran Steven Thurlow became the first known member of the Boogaloo movement to be charged with participating in the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, newly filed court documents show.

Thurlow was caught on CCTV footage inside the Senate side of the Capitol building wearing “wearing a black backpack, black watch cap, a camouflage colored jacket, gray pants, yellow scarf and white-rimmed sunglasses.”  The distinctive white-rimmed sunglasses made it easy to identify Thurlow as he walked through the Capitol.

In the FBI affidavit, photos Thurlow posted to his Facebook page around Christmas show him dressed in combat fatigues with a patch emblazoned with “BOOGALOO” across his chest.  The Boogaloo movement is one that espouses an impending civil war in the United States.  “The term is sometimes used by militia extremists and racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVE), who allude to it using shorthand such as ‘big igloo’ or ‘big luau’ and imagery such as igloos or Hawaiian shirts,” according to the affidavit. 

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned comedian Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction after determining that a previous agreement Cosby had with a county prosecutor regarding a statement made in a civil lawsuit should not have been entered into the record, the Associated Press reports.

[Update (1:27 p.m. ET):  The former Montgomery County (PA) district attorney who entered into the agreement with Cosby to not use his civil case testimony in a criminal trial was Bruce Castor, who would later serve as one of Donald Trump’s lawyers in his second impeachment trial.]

The 83-year-old Cosby had served two years of a three-to-ten year sentence for an alleged sexual assault he committed after drugging his victim.  Cosby has claimed that the encounter was consensual, even though the victim had testified that she was incapable of giving consent because she was drugged.

The state supreme court ruled that testimony stemming from witnesses named in the civil suit–brought by a different victim of Cosby’s who had other women provide sworn affidavits in the case–unjustly tainted the trial because Cosby was not criminally charged in those earlier cases.  They also said that an agreement Cosby had with the previous Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor to exclude his statements in the civil suit, which had put under seal, had been violated.  Castor had declined to prosecute Cosby even though multiple women had accused Cosby of sexual assault.

“A Washington state lawmaker critical of COVID-19 vaccine mandates wore a yellow Star of David at a speech over the weekend – a symbol the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust. State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, had the star affixed to his pink shirt during a speech to conservative activists at a Lacey church basketball gym on Saturday” the Seattle Times reports.

“‘It’s an echo from history,’ Walsh wrote on a Facebook page where a video of the event was posted. ‘In the current context, we’re all Jews.’ The misappropriation of the infamous star symbol – used to identify Jews first for exclusion, and then for extermination – was criticized as deeply offensive by a local Holocaust education leader. ‘Our government is making an effort to protect their own citizens, not kill them,’ said Dee Simon, Baral Family executive director of the Seattle-based Holocaust Center for Humanity, which works to teach people about Nazi Germany’s murder of 6 million Jews during World War II. ‘It not only trivializes it, it distorts history.’ In an interview Tuesday, Walsh said he had been given the star by someone at the event, where most attendees were wearing one. He described some of the organizers as ‘deeply concerned about vaccine passports and vaccine segregation.’ Washington state has not imposed a requirement to be vaccinated for COVID-19, working instead to encourage people through education and enticements such as $250,000 lottery drawings.”

“Former President Donald Trump is rejecting pleas from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to postpone a campaign-style rally this weekend some 200 miles from the Miami suburb where an international search-and-rescue mission is excavating bodies from the site of a collapsed seaside condominium. DeSantis’s office has ‘made a direct plea’ to the former president’s team, calling on it to postpone the Saturday event in Sarasota. One Florida Republican bluntly said Trump and his team need to ‘read the room.’ The governor is getting tested here as to how far he’s going to be pushed before he breaks ranks with President Trump. And he has to be very careful because this is Trump country,’ this source said. ‘The base loves the president. But they equally love Ron. It’s a showdown going on right now.’ For now, the Trump camp is holding firm. ‘Nobody wants to cancel,’ a source close to Trump said” reports the ultra-right wing Washington Examiner.

The MAGA-Kremlinology questions of this report are interesting, as it seems maximized to make Trump look as bad as possible. Is DeSantis trying to preen and stir shit with Trump though a reliably right wing birdcage paper, or are the Examiner stirring this up themselves for some other actor who wants Trump knocked off? Or both? While I don’t know much about the Examiner’s owner Phil Anschutz, from what I can tell he seems to be much closer to the McConnell axis of the GOP than the Trump one, as he’s been active with the party a lot longer than the Donald, and as such a guy who would at this point be gravitating more towards Ron than Don for 2024.

According to a recent poll of historians by C-SPAN, Donald Trump is the 41st best president of all time, and the worst living president, in United States history, failing to surpass the ignominy of presidents Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.

Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt topped the list of more than 140 scholars, historians, academics and lawyers from around the country.  C-SPAN has produced the poll in 2000, 2009 and 2017.

The highest-ranked living president is Barack Obama at #10.  Bill Clinton ranked 19th.  George HW Bush came in 21st; his son, George W. Bush ranked 29th, with Jimmy Carter between them at 26th.