CNN: “A White House staffer and former Texas state representative are among those suing several participants of a ‘Trump Train’ that allegedly harassed a Biden campaign bus last October in Texas, claiming in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the Trump supporters engaged in coordinated, illegal political intimidation in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act. The complaint was filed on behalf White House staffer, David Gins; former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis; former Biden campaign volunteer Eric Cervini; and the driver of the Biden campaign bus, Timothy Holloway.”

“The plaintiffs wrote in their complaint filed in the Western District of Texas that on October 30, the Trump supporters ‘terrorized and menaced the driver and passengers on the Biden-Harris Campaign’s bus’ for at least 90 minutes, forcing the bus to slow to a crawl on a major highway while swerving in front of the bus to block its path. ‘They played a madcap game of highway ‘chicken,’ coming within three to four inches of the bus,’ the lawsuit alleges. ‘They tried to run the bus off the road,’ referring to the defendants. The complaint alleges that the defendants – named as Eliazar Cisneros, Hannah Ceh, Joeylynn Mesaros, Robert Mesaros, Dolores Park, and a Jane and John Doe – conspired beforehand to surround and block the bus in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act, passed by Congress in 1871 to prohibit the obstruction of free and fair elections via the coordinated intimidation of voters. As a result of their actions, they claim, the campaign was forced to cancel its stops in San Marcos and Austin out of fear for their safety.”

“A One America News Network personality denies he suggested that ‘traitors’ who ‘stole’ the 2020 election should be executed while he pushed the conspiracy theory that widespread fraud kept former President Donald Trump from a second term in the White House. Clips on social media that emerged Wednesday evening showed Pearson Sharp in a segment in which he said, ‘In the past, America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors’ who were ‘involved in these efforts to undermine the election.’ And that’s ‘execution.’ The headlines that ensued in publications such as the Daily Beast and the Independent said he was calling for, or at least suggesting, that people be executed on the far-flung premise the November contest was rigged, as Trump has claimed.”

“But the television personality told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that such characterizations of his comments were inaccurate. ‘Neither I or OAN are suggesting anyone should be executed,’ he said. ‘I’m simply reporting that conspiring against the government to overthrow an election, with the help of a foreign government, would be treason. If that is investigated, and if that is proven, then US laws maintain that execution is a legal punishment for those crimes,’ he added in a written message. Sharp also said legal penalties are up to ‘the appropriate law enforcement agencies to determine,’ and he said the network ‘is simply pointing out that if election fraud is proven, then it could very well constitute treason. And according to our laws, treason is punishable by death. If it is found that government officials coordinated with foreign countries to overthrow the election, then that would be the very definition of treason. Which, according to our nation’s laws, could result in execution'” – Washington Examiner.

Politico: “Former President Donald Trump is bronzed, rested and politically bloodthirsty. Having spent months in semi-retirement after his election loss in 2020, Trump is set this weekend to kick off a series of political events. Aides and confidants say the goal is to boost his standing in anticipation of a possible future run and to scratch that never-soothed itch he has for publicity. But it’s also to exact some revenge. On Saturday, Trump will hold a Make America Great Again rally outside of Cleveland, Ohio in support of longtime aide turned Republican congressional candidate Max Miller, who is vying for the seat currently held by Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, a Cleveland native who voted for the second impeachment of Trump after the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill.”

“‘The fact that his first rally is targeting Max’s campaign tells you a lot about where the focus is,’ said Taylor Budowich, a senior adviser to Miller’s campaign. ‘[Gonzalez] didn’t just betray President Trump but he betrayed his constituents.’ Saturday’s rally – the first of a MAGA tour that Trump’s aides have teased for months – is expected to draw out diehards longing to be taken back to a different era when they were less bitter about the turns life took: one when Trump was in the White House. And the president is likely to indulge them, increasingly eager to push the falsehoods that his reelection was deprived of him through nefarious attempts to doctor the vote.”

https://youtu.be/yrijMZz_0ow

Since Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley embarrassed conservatives by saying that Critical Race Theory–the Right’s newest front on the Culture Wars and something they obviously don’t understand–is something he’s read about and studied and won’t lead to the end of our Republic, Fox News hostess (and woman in desperate need of a real man to tell her her place in the world, conservative men won’t say to her face) Laura Ingraham has been campaigning to defund the military.

Against the backdrop of a Leftist Agenda, we must be the loyal opposition and we must also offer the American people a positive AMERICAN AGENDA informed by our best traditions and the extraordinary growth in our movement over the past four years. 🇺🇸

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) June 25, 2021

A 2020 study by a professor at Florida International University found that the condo building that collapsed overnight in the Surfside area of Miami-Dade County had been sinking into the earth for three decades, USA Today reports.

Shimon Wdowinski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment of FIU, calculated that the Champlain Towers South complex had dropped more than a centimeter into the soil between 1993 and 1999, when the data were collected.  While buildings commonly undergo a process of “settling” as people commonly call it, the study found that this building was actually displacing earth under the building, making the structure unstable.

The towers were built on so-called “reclaimed” land:  wetlands that had been filled in to enable development.  Building on such land requires significant research and structural work to ensure the foundation of the building does not shift and is not subject to hydrological or geological stresses that can shift or literally liquify the earth under the development. 

https://youtu.be/zuzkFOLQJeo

Tucker Carlson on a war veteran:  “Mark Milley is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He didn’t get that job because he’s brilliant or because he’s brave or because the people who know him respect him. He is not and they definitely don’t.”  Later, Carlson said things he would never say to Milley’s face:  “He’s not just a pig.  He’s stupid.”  (That clip after the fold.)

With the disclosure that Tucker Carlson has been feeding information to the people his network has dubbed “fake news” media, the knives are out at Fox News.

Fox News weekend host (and person whose voice peels paint off walls) Mark Levin took a not-too-veiled shot at Carlson on his syndicated radio show Thursday, claiming that he never served as an unnamed source for journalists, “let alone the New York Times and their ilk,” according to a transcript on Media Matters.

Levin went on to complain about journalists who leak information to other reporters, either as a way to promote their careers or themselves.  Without mentioning Carlson by name, Levin complained about unethical media personalities:  “You see, this isn’t a game to me. I’m not positioning myself. This is deadly serious, this is the real world matters here. The real world matters here.”

“So, don’t be surprised when journalists lie, or deceive, or leak themselves. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

A bipartisan group of Congress members announced they have reached a framework for overhauling police procedures and oversight, a publicly popular policy priority the GOP was reluctant to work on with Democrats, the Associated Press reports.

“After months of working in good faith, we have reached an agreement on a framework addressing the major issues for bipartisan police reform,” the statement from the group read. “There is still more work to be done on the final bill, and nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. Over the next few weeks we look forward to continuing our work toward getting a finalized proposal across the finish line.”

Five members of Congress worked on the deal:  Sens. Tim Scott (R SC) Cory Booker, (D NJ), Richard Durbin (D IL), Lindsey Graham (R SC) and Rep. Karen Bass (D CA)  For some reason, Durbin’s and Graham’s names were not included on the statement.

CNN: “The top US general repeatedly pushed back on then-President Donald Trump’s argument that the military should intervene violently in order to quell the civil unrest that erupted around the country last year. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley often found he was the lone voice of opposition to those demands during heated Oval Office discussions, according to excerpts of a new book, obtained by CNN, from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender. Titled ‘Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost,’ the book reveals new details about how Trump’s language became increasingly violent during Oval Office meetings as protests in Seattle and Portland began to receive attention from cable new outlets. The President would highlight videos that showed law enforcement getting physical with protesters and tell his administration he wanted to see more of that behavior, the excerpts show.”

“During one Oval Office debate, senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller chimed in, equating the scenes unfolding on his television to those in a third-world country and claiming major American cities had been turned into war zones. ‘These cities are burning,’ Miller warned, according to the excerpts. The comment infuriated Milley, who viewed Miller as not only wrong but out of his lane, Bender writes, noting the Army general who had commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan spun around in his seat and pointed a finger directly at Miller. ‘Shut the fuck up, Stephen,’ Milley snapped, according to the excerpts.”

Federal authorities charged Shane Jason Woods, 43, of Auburn, Illinois with assaulting law enforcement officers as well as assaulting other individuals, specifically a member of the media who was covering the January 6th domestic terrorist attack at the Capitol.  It marks the first case in which an insurrectionist is charged with assaulting a journalist covering the coup attempt.

Woods reportedly tripped a police officer who was chasing a person who had sprayed her and other officers with bear spray.  He then set about tearing down barricades around a media staging area and destroying media equipment.  When a network photographer came to retrieve his equipment, Woods tackled the man, causing him to drop and damage his camera.

The attacks were caught on a number of different cell phone videos that were subsequently posted on social media.

https://youtu.be/7nO9GXkiM-Q

Prostitute toe sucker Dick Morris, who has obvious sexual perversions and proclivities, found one in the most unique of places:  Critical Race Theory.  Decrying General Mark Milley saying that he studied CRT and that it’s a valuable academic exercise, Morris says that it will lead to Oedipal bloodshed, a notion Morris believes “all kids have.”

In a closed-door briefing before the House Committee on Homeland Security, officials from the Department of Homeland Security raised concerns that current conspiracy theories that Donald Trump will be reinstalled as president in August will spark unrest around the country, particularly in Washington, DC, Politico reports.

During the rare members-only briefing, DHS’s top counterterrorism official John Cohen said they have not identified any credible threats at this point, but the department is aware that the conspiracy theory casts further doubt amongst Trump followers that the election was illegitimate.  That could lead to particularly cultish Trumpians to engage in violence.

As Politico notes, a Morning Consult/POLITICO survey from earlier this month showed that almost one-third of Republican voters have bought into the conspiracy theory.

Some of you aware of the significance of today might be wondering why it hasn’t been officially mentioned yet by either Jack or myself. We talked it over and decided that Friday is probably actually the true first anniversary of National Zero, based on some moderately plausible reasoning.

NationalZero.com the site first went online on June 24th, 2020, with the first article published at 6:30 PM EDT that evening. However that was kind of a soft opening/test run whatever (The Smell of Gasoline holds the title for first ever National Zero comment). The first news article was not published however until 1:12 PM EDT the next day (which was about Ted Cruz joining Parler, haha).

Personally I prefer this for several reasons: I recently found out that – through sheer coincidence – that National Zero’s progenitor, Spartan America News World Max first went online on June 25, 2019. I did not plan to start one site 365 days after the other, it just happened that way. Not that it really means anything, but it’s nice to know. Christmas is also on the 25th of the month. I like odd numbers better than even ones too. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I’m not sure what to do for our one-year retrospective and haven’t even started it yet. Complete lack of preparedness is the most salient for postponement. You could even go ahead and say in the comments that Spartan’s a lazy asshole for pushing it back a day and I’ll be happy to rebut defensively by elaborating upon the contrived, complete bullshit reasoning above. Hmmm… Maybe shouldn’t have typed that out loud.

https://youtu.be/aCqPoa8MMNc

Andrew Giuliani, the claimed son of former New York mayor, Trump lawyer and walking advertisement for powdered hair dye Rudy Giuliani, wants you to understand he’s infuriated that the New York Appellate Court revoke his alleged father’s law license for lying in numerous court filings.

Aside from reading trouble, grammatical errors and a lack of knowledge about civics, Andy has a spectacular grasp on how to frame a video while standing in some parking lot so he looks like an escaped baboon that just found a cell phone.

There are some things that just cannot be covered properly as they’re occurring, and one of them is happening right now. U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee in DC, is hearing arguments from the attorneys for Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell and Rudy Giuliani–as well as others like Alan Dershowitz–arguing that the statements made by trio do not amount to defamation against Dominion Voting Systems.  We’re linking to the Twitter thread below covering it in real time because you can’t make this shit up.

UPDATE:  The judge has a sense of humor:

"I don't want the court to be led down the incorrect legal framework," Clare says.

"I don’t think there’s a risk of that," the judge replies.

— Jacqueline Thomsen (@jacq_thomsen) June 24, 2021

https://youtu.be/PfzjeYcNENc

Searchers using dogs trained to find earthquake survivors in rubble are combing over the debris from the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South Condo, a 12-story residential building in the Surfside area of Miami-Dade County, the Miami Herald reports.

Twelve hours after the building collapsed at 1:30 a.m. ET due to unknown causes, rescues had been able to free 35 people from the wreckage, with 10 sent to hospitals for treatment.  One engineer said the collapse of the 40-year-old building was “an oddity of biblical proportions.”

In a sign that the long-term recovery from the economic despair of the coronavirus pandemic continues to increase, the US economy grew by 6.4% in the first quarter of 2021, far outpacing the slower-than-expected fourth quarter of 2020, which only hit the 4.3%.

The so-called “third estimate” of quarterly growth was unchanged from earlier estimates, showing that temporary factors were not major players in the initial calculations.  It sets the US economy up for a very strong performance for the year, which some pundits say could be the strongest economy in seven decades, according to the Associated Press.

While weekly first-time unemployment claims still hung around 400,000–Thursday’s figure came in at 411,000–economic data show the US set to have an annual GDP growth somewhere between 6.0 to 7.5%  The US hit 7.4% growth in 1951, while the next best year was 7.2% in 1984. 

No less than 280 times in the past 24 hours here on National Zero have spambots with names like “Chandeep Bindra” and “Chelsea May McDonald” posted a link to YouTube that redirects to that bullshit above. I’ve also gotten at least five of them replying to my comments on The Hill.

Unlike The Hill though, you can’t see any of them here on National Zero, since we actually pay attention to what the Russian meth-head cybercriminals coding them up put in the links and use that to inform our profanity filter. The Hill, meanwhile, is probably going to ban ALL links for the next several days – as they have the last few times this happened. I still see a lot of innocuous comments from you guys coming up in the “pending” section of the Disqus admin panel, so again, if you find your comment put into review and you’re not using anything that’s an obvious racial or homophobic slur, just fucking read this please (I mean that in the nicest way possible).

If, for example, you write “I’m not…sure” in a comment here, it will be blocked, because “.su” is in the profanity filter (as are other random TLDs favored by the spammers). Just put a space after your ellipses. If you write “href” it will be blocked, because all hypertext is in the profanity filter. Just put in the URL. If you write “t.co/” it will be blocked. All of this is because of the Russian meth-head cybercriminals ruining everyone else’s fun. I would say we should boycott Russian products in response but I can’t think of anything that shithole exports besides malware.

https://youtu.be/HD8iRzSG_v4

OAN so-called “investigative reporter” Pearson Sharp called for the execution of tens of thousands of people he claims were involved in the overturning of the 2020 election results that actually re-elected Donald Trump.  While offering no evidence of any kind, this “investigative reporter” notes that the US has dealt with traitors in the past by killing them.