The government of Russian president Vladimir Putin has widened its crackdown on the opposition to the Putin regime, imprisoning two more Kremlin critics and barring opposition parties from being included on ballots in upcoming elections by declaring their parties “extremist groups.”

According the the AFP (Agence France-Presse), the Russian government arrested and jailed Dmitry Gudkov and Andrei Pivovarov, two prominent opposition leaders.  Pivovarov was pulled off a flight scheduled to take off for Warsaw, Poland.  A court later ruled that Pivovarov, the executive director of a recently disbanded pro-democracy group called Open Russia, must be jailed for two months prior to his trial.  From a self-imposed exile, the founder of Open Russia announced that the group was being disbanded for the safety of its members in an effort to avoid political prosecution.

Gudkov was arrested on an allegation that he failed to pay off an old lease, a charge that could lead to a sentence of five years in prison. 

CNBC: “Former President Donald Trump’s blog – a webpage where he shared statements after larger social media companies banned him from their platforms – has been permanently shut down, his spokesman said Wednesday. The page, ‘From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,’ has been scrubbed from Trump’s website and ‘will not be returning,’ his senior aide Jason Miller told CNBC. ‘It was just auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on,’ Miller said in email correspondence. He declined to provide additional details about those efforts. ‘Hoping to have more information on the broader efforts soon, but I do not have a precise awareness of timing,’ Miller said.”

https://twitter.com/JoshMandelOhio/status/1399886781189853186

“As the feds expand their probe into Rudy Giuliani, investigators have homed in on Giuliani Security & Safety, a consulting firm that has done business with various governments and organizations around the world, according to two people briefed on the matter and another source familiar with the situation. In recent months, the investigators have asked questions about and examined documents related to Giuliani Security & Safety (GSS). Their interest comes at a time when the feds have ramped up their scrutiny of Giuliani’s work, including his Ukraine-related efforts, to determine whether or not the former NYC mayor engaged in unregistered and illegal lobbying on behalf of foreign figures. Giuliani has repeatedly denied engaging in any unregistered lobbying or committing any FARA violations, and so far no charges have been brought against him in this matter.”

“It is unclear exactly why federal investigators have been taking a look at Giuliani’s security and consulting business. However, during the first year of the Trump administration, Giuliani Security & Safety was hired by the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The deal was reportedly the result of the local influence of the Ukrainian-Russian real estate developer Pavel Fuks, an ally of the town’s Moscow-friendly mayor. Fuks was previously engaged in negotiations to construct the never-realized Trump Tower Moscow. A 2018 press release purported that the firm was working to establish a Kharkiv Office of Emergency Management modeled on New York City’s. But in an interview with the New York Times, Fuks characterized Giuliani’s role as that of a ‘lobbyist.’ Giuliani has disputed this description, but the deal subsequently drew criticism as the lawyer gallivanted about Eastern Europe attempting to prop up conspiracy theories about now-President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Giuliani has insisted that the work in Ukraine was all done on behalf of his client, then-President Donald Trump, and therefore could not have been part of a foreign lobbying effort. The extension of the federal investigation into Giuliani Security & Safety, with its numerous foreign clients, could complicate that assertion” – Daily Beast.

As of 8:27 am EDT Wednesday it appears the “Desk of Donald J Trump” blog no longer is functioning. The URL donaldjtrump.com/desk redirects to a vague “Sign Up below to receive EXCLUSIVE updates from Donald J. Trump!” While few things the Orange Pharaoh does make a lot of sense, for him to simply pull down his blog without warning or explanation is particularly odd.

If I had to guess what happened, I’d say the traffic numbers pissed him off and he just told his staff to take it down. Another less likely explanation is that he’s nearing the launch of a new actual social media platform as has been claimed to be “two weeks away” by his minions for months now.

“With or without Donald J. Trump atop the party, the Republican strategy for the 2022 elections and beyond virtually assures race – and racism – will be central to political debate for years to come. In an era when every topic seems to turn quickly to race, Republicans see this most divisive issue as either political necessity or an election-winner – including as it relates to voting laws, critical race theory, big-city crime, immigration and political correctness.”

“These topics pit the mostly white GOP against the very diverse Democratic Party. It’s unfolding in local school boards, national politics and on social media. An Axios-Ipsos poll on race relations last month shows this starkly, Axios managing editor Margaret Talev writes: ‘There’s a massive gulf between how Republicans and Democrats view race – a 66-point gap on whether the U.S. must continue making changes to give Black Americans equal rights to white Americans. There’s a 48-point gap on whether the events of the past year led to a realization there’s still a lot of racism in the U.S. – and a 49-point gap on whether the protests were good for society.’ Of all demographic groups, white people were the most resistant to structural reforms to address institutional racism – a gap driven by Republican sentiment” – Axios.

AP: “The largest warship in the Iranian navy caught fire and later sank Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman under unclear circumstances, semiofficial news agencies reported. The Fars and Tasnim news agencies said efforts failed to save the support warship Kharg, named after the island that serves as the main oil terminal for Iran. The blaze began around 2:25 a.m. and firefighters tried to contain it, Fars said. The vessel sank near the Iranian port of Jask, some 1,270 kilometers (790 miles) southeast of Tehran on the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. Photos circulated on Iranian social media of sailors wearing life jackets evacuating the vessel as a fire burned behind them. State TV and semiofficial news agencies referred to the 207-meter (679 foot) Kharg as a ‘training ship.’ Fars published video of thick, black smoke rising from the ship early Wednesday morning.”

“Satellite photos from Planet Labs Inc. analyzed by The Associated Press showed the Kharg off to the west of Jask on Tuesday. Satellites from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that track fires from space detected a blaze at the site of the Jask that started just before the time of the fire reported by Fars. The Kharg serves as one of a few vessels in the Iranian navy capable of providing replenishment at sea for its other ships. It also can lift heavy cargo and serve as a launch point for helicopters. The warship, built in Britain and launched in 1977, entered the Iranian navy in 1984 after lengthy negotiations that followed Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.”

The Trump Organization has put the remainder of the lease for the Old Post Office Building in downtown Washington, DC, the home of the Trump International Hotel Washington, a project the company opened just four and a half years ago, the Washington Post reports.

The Trump Organization retained the brokerage services of the Newmark Group, a commercial real estate advisory firm based in New York City, to manage the property lease and any potential bids.  This is the second time since the hotel opened that the Trumps have tried to unload the lease.

The hotel has never been a commercial success.  High-profile restaurateurs José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian pulled out of the project before the hotel opened because of Donald Trump’s inflammatory political positions.  During the Trump presidency, business for the property was dependent on lobbying groups and political entities trying to cozy favor with Trump.

A federal judge has ordered a former Republican Nevada state representative to permanently cease distribution of a boutique bottled water that it claimed was “infused with negative ions,” but was actually just tap water from the local water authority, the Associated Press reports.

US District Judge for Nevada Jennifer Dorsey permanently barred former state legislator Brent Jones and his company, Affinity Lifestyles, from selling his Real Water product.  Dorsey must recall all distributed products and destroy any inventory he has in stock.  Affinity Lifestyles marketed Real Water as an “alkaline water” with a pH of 8.0;  water has a natural pH of 6.0 to 8.5.

Advertised as created with “E2 Electron Energized Technology” and labels that said it was “infused with negative ions” and offers healthy detoxifying properties, Real Water was connected to a number of patients with liver damage and at least one death.  The state is investigating Jones, his business and the product to determine what the company did in bottling the tap that may have caused the health issues.

“Democrat Melanie Stansbury has defeated her Republican opponent in the special election to fill Deb Haaland’s seat in New Mexico’s 1st district” reports Brian Tyler Cohen.

Here is an exactly transcription of the entirety of Sean Hannity’s commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre:  ” … ”

Nothing.  Not a single word.  He did, however, find time to complain about President Joe Biden eating ice cream, Vice President Kamala Harris telling people to enjoy the long weekend, Barack Obama pronouncing the “s” in “corpsman” and yes, even Hunter Biden’s laptop (for which he had Ewic Trump on to comment).  He even had a segment on a sex ed video shown to elementary school students at a New York private school (featuring Kayleigh McEnany bragging that she went to an all-girls Catholic school where “the nuns taught us nothing of this sort, nor would they ever,” like that’s a good thing).

After a MyPillow ad, Hannity had Louisiana Republican Senator (and man who doesn’t merit his name) John Kennedy speculate about the “Wuhan virus” and its origins in a Chinese lab, and then his two Black commentators on to talk about a violent attack on an Asian-American police officer in San Francisco.

A special thanks to our LGBTQ readers for making National Zero a really gay time. And when I say “gay” in that sentence I mean it’s a fun time like they would say back in the early 1900s, not like homosexual-friendly. We are that too of course, but that specific usage was “joyous”, even if that is an outdated definition. My humor is pretty queer, you know. But not like queer as in…

Anyway, we’re proud to call you guys, gals, and not applicables part of our internet family here and look forward to this month in celebrating the hard-fought gains in acceptance you’ve won over these last few decades and we’ll continue reporting the bad shit that happens to the haters out there when karma comes back and kicks their asses. Especially the closeted conservative ones.

At the start of National Dairy Month, a 13-mile Wisconsin police chase ended after the driver steered into pastureland and his car was surrounded by a herd of cows and the car couldn’t mooooooooove.

In an udderly ridiculous Facebook post, the Barron County Sheriff’s office milked it by thanking the “Barron County Bovine Unit” for its assistance in clogging up the path for the culprit, who thought he would be the Big Cheese and elude the cops.

The steaks weren’t high for the driver, who was being corralled for a minor beef:  a vehicle registration violation.

Online giant Amazon announced two key personnel policies changes–one regarding marijuana use and the other relating to the number and length of breaks their employees take–in an effort to make the company a more attractive employer, CNN reports.

In conjunction with its support of state and federal governments decriminalizing marijuana, Amazon announced that it will no longer include marijuana in its pre-employment drug tests.  It will continue to maintain its ban on marijuana use for positions regulated by federal Department of Transportation rules, such as commercial drivers, and it will include marijuana in its tests when investigating workplace accidents, as it does with alcohol and other substances.

Amazon also announced that it will cancel its program known as its “Time off Task” policy, which measured how many breaks employees took and how much time they took on those breaks.  This policy has been blamed by critics for employee practices like urinating in bottles while they’re working so they do not cut down on the metric.

The differences between original and the updated versions of the flyer for the June 12th FrankSpeech rally at some town in Wisconsin reveal some interesting insights about the evolving nature of the event. The removal of the phrase “family friendly” comes with the addition of former President Trump’s virtual appearance, as he’s likely to use foul language while complaining about how he was cheated in the 2020 election it is by definition no longer family friendly. It would also appear that coolers are now permitted and – by extension – open containers of alcohol will be consumed. So it’ll be a hellraising, head-banging MAGA racist fucking rager, bro.

Most importantly however, is Mike Lindell’s insistence on being the most prominently featured figure on the advertisement. For as Proverbs 16:8 sayeth “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”. Michael, a sinner, is not greater than his God, the almighty Trump, tempting His wrath and contempt. Hath thou no circumspection Michael? Hath thy love of smoking crack cocaine damaged thy brain? Lastly, why hath thou forsaken Joe Piscopo?

In a shocking development, a supporter of Donald Trump was identified as a liar, but in this case, the discovery of his false statements actually benefited him.

As Politico reports, Christopher Kelly boasted on Facebook and to friends that he was part of the mob of domestic terrorists who attacked law enforcement officers and invaded the Capitol on January 6th.  Kelly was arrested January 21st in upstate New York after law enforcement officers were tipped off that he posted “We’re in” on his Facebook page.  He later posted a photo taken from inside the building, although he’s not shown in it, and he posted other comments, like “Taking this back by force now” and “F— these snakes. Out of OUR HOUSE.”

In fact, Kelly didn’t enter the building, prosecutors said as they asked the court to dismiss charges filed against Kelly.   While he may have been on the Capitol grounds at the time of the attack, Kelly never entered the building, and federal prosecutors have opted not to pursue charges against people whose only offense was walking on Capitol grounds.

“Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for southern borders, including Starr, Cameron, Willacy, and Hidalgo counties in response to what some officials have called a ‘border crisis.’ The declaration will provide ‘more resources and strategies to combat the ongoing influx of unlawful immigrants,’ according to a press release. Abbott authorized the use of any necessary and available state and local resources to protect landowners from the damage migrants cause to private property in southern border counties. ‘President Biden’s open-border policies have paved the way for dangerous gangs and cartels, human traffickers, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour into our communities,’ Abbott said in a statement. ‘Meanwhile, landowners along the border are seeing their property damaged and vandalized on a daily basis while the Biden Administration does nothing to protect them'” – ValleyCentral.com

“Greg Abbott is a fighter and a Great Governor for the incredible people of Texas. No Governor has done more to secure the Border and keep our communities safe than Governor Abbott. Greg is a staunch defender of the Second Amendment and has made Texas a Second Amendment Sanctuary State. Texas has become a job-creating machine, and our partnership helped restore America’s economic power and success. Greg is also very tough on crime, fully supports the brave men and women of Law Enforcement, and is all in on Election Integrity. Governor Greg Abbott will continue to be a great leader for the Lone Star State, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement for re-election. He will never let you down!” – Former Guy’s statement, coming directly from Greg’s Twitter, a clear message to his rivals in the pack that he’s been scent marked by the dominant male.

What’s noteworthy is that this comes fully three weeks after Trump endorsed the more vocally MAGA Lieutenant Governor Dannie Goeb, better known as Dan Patrick. Maybe it was Abbott’s tyrannical threats to defund the Texas legislature’s operating budget that won Trump over. Also note that – like pretty much everything Trump says – the last sentence of the endorsement statement is complete lie. Greg Abbott has let Texans down repeatedly, particularly with his terrible management of the February storm and cold snap that killed an estimated 700 Texans.

In a 52-page filing in the federal DC District Court, Dominion Voting Systems moved for the judge to toss out the motion by Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow and the purveyor of falsehoods about the 2020 election, to have the defamation case against him completely dismissed.

Lindell’s lawyers filed a rather standard motion to dismiss the case based on typical bases:  no standing, wrong jurisdiction, and a rather unique claim that Lindell’s company, MyPillow, should not be held responsible for the statements of its owner.

Dominion, however, notes that were it not for Lindell’s claimed fame–through his ownership of MyPillow, his appearances in their commercials, and the recognition he got on Fox News as a sponsor–the claims made by Lindell wouldn’t have been taken serious.  They also note that Lindell made money off his promotion through MyPillow by offering discounts to his conspiracy theory believers.

“At his speech in Tulsa, President Joe Biden says Vice President Kamala Harris will take charge of the administration’s efforts to pass HR1 and the VRA” reports Huffington Post’s Kevin Robillard.